nDreams secures additional £2.7m investment

Virtual reality developer and publisher nDreams has raised a further 2.7m in investment, the studio announced today. Of that figure, 2m has come from a follow-on investment from Mercia Technologies, while the remaining 700,000 has come from private investors.

As the VR industry continues to grow, nDreams hopes to use the funds to further expand the studio. The company already has five VR titles in development, and it’s also just signed a deal to bring exclusive VR content to a major VR arcade company – more details of which will be announced in the coming months.

In addition, nDreams has appointed Paul Fitzsimons as its new chairman and Rob Precious has joined the board as a non-executive director. Previously, Fitzsimons was a former partner at private equity firm Apax Partners, while Previous was the former director of business development at the ARM-owned Geomerics. Elsewhere, the studio is looking to hire a CFO and COO over the coming months to help bolster its senior management team.

Patrick O’Luanaigh, CEO and founder of nDreams, said: Mercia’s continued support, and the backing of private investors, bolsters our relentless ambition to remain at the forefront of VR.

"The company has expanded rapidly over the past 12 months leading to outstanding opportunities, including our move into VR Arcades and our continued focus on creating innovative VR content for home headsets. We’re also delighted to welcome Paul and Rob to the board, who bring a wealth of experience and insight to the team."

Mike Hayes, Investment Director at Mercia Technologies PLC, added: nDreams continues to thrive within the VR market, a sector expected to be worth in excess of $30 billion by 2020.

"Its growing reputation as one of the UK’s leading developers and publishers of VR content demonstrates the significant progress that the company has made this year with many of the major hardware brands in this rapidly growing market. We are delighted to continue to back this industry-leading team."