Iconic AI, a London-based game development startup, just raised $4 million using this 10-slide pitch deck
- Iconic AI, which aims to change AAA game development, raised $4 million in pre-seed funding.
- Iconic wants to use AI to expedite development, the cost and scale of which has "ballooned," its CEO said.
- The round was led by HodlCo and included investment from FOV Ventures and Sequoia's scout fund.
Iconic AI, a London-based video game developer, has raised $4 million in pre-seed funding.
Founded in 2023, Iconic wants to change "AAA game" development: major titles produced by larger developers.
Iconic CEO John Lusty told Business Insider that developers' business models were under threat as "development has ballooned" in size.
"The industry has changed from small teams of 30 to 40 people, making games with single-digit million-dollar budgets to massive teams and overseeing games with budgets of $100 million or more," he said.
"That's caused problems for the industry; the games market is more difficult, so even if you have a successful game, the size of teams makes things difficult to organize and arrange," he continued.
Iconic wants to use AI offerings to expedite areas such as animation, translation, voice generation, character dialogue, and testing.
In an interview with BI, Lusty compared his startup's offering to how fintech startups improved customers' user experiences in banking.
HodlCo led the $4 million pre-seed round. The fund was started by Iconic cofounder Junaid Hussain, who was formerly an investor at London's Kingsway Capital.
Hussain told BI that Iconic "needed someone wearing both hats."
"We couldn't have assembled a team with just a $100,000 check or even $1 million," Hussain said, adding, "We needed more firepower to get things going under one roof, and the funding worked because I could lead it."
Funding also came from FOV Ventures, Interface Capital, Deepwater Asset Management, and scout funds from Sequoia and Atomico.
The round also attracted angel investment from current and former senior executives at DeepMind, OpenAI, Disney, Tencent, and Microsoft, Iconic said.
The company told BI that the round was oversubscribed and that the funding would be used to grow its current staff of 15 people. Funding will also go toward GPUs and Iconic's office space, the company added.
Check out Iconic AI's 10-slide pitch deck below: