Farnborough, Hampshire, UK – nDreams Ltd., the fast-growing UK virtual reality (VR) developer and publisher, has received an investment round of £2 million ($3m) from Mercia Technologies PLC, the technology-focused investment businesses. These funds will allow for continued expansion, enable the company to grow their self-publishing capabilities and also offer publishing support to other independent studios for their own VR titles.
The nDreams investment follows the recent reveals for its first major title, The Assembly, which was exhibited to the public for the first time at the EGX videogames expo in September. The Assembly’s full commercial release will coincide with the launch of the first high-end VR headsets next year. Mercia’s £2m investment into nDreams will be divided into two separate investments of £1m each.
nDreams have recently bolstered their internal development staff significantly and are looking to grow the team even further. Recent hires include:
- VP of Development Tom Gillo, who joins the team from PlayStation’s multi-award winning London Studio where most recently he led development of PlayStation VR titles.
- Lead Designer Jamie Whitworth, previously of Rocksteady Studios where he led the development of the exterior locations and cities across the critically acclaimed Batman: Arkham trilogy.
- Code Dept. Manager Richard Fabian, previously of Frontier Developments and Rockstar Games, who has been programming videogames professionally for 15 years and is the author of the Data-oriented Design website.
- Senior Audio Designer Matt Simmonds, who has worked in games audio for over 25 years and whose higher-profile credits span from Chuck Rock and Micro Machines to Silent Hill: Origins andSilent Hill: Shattered Memories.
nDreams was one of the first videogame studios in the world to focus solely on creating innovative and remarkable VR interactive entertainment, and has been working on virtual reality projects since 2013. Two of its titles, Gunner and Perfect Beach, have already been launched on Samsung Gear VR, which became commercially available to the public on November 20th. Perfect Beach is also available to download for Google Cardboard from the Google Play Store.
Patrick O’Luanaigh, nDreams’ CEO and Founder, said:
“I’m delighted to be strengthening our relationship with Mercia Technologies. This additional investment allows us to extend our capabilities as a publisher and accelerate our efforts as we head into 2016 – the big ‘Year One’ for VR. With these new hires, we’ve raised the bar in terms of our studio’s skillset, knowledge base and quality of our future output. With our new staff on board, we’re very much looking forward to releasing ‘The Assembly’ on PC and PS4 in 2016.”
nDreams will be taking The Assembly to the EGX Rezzed videogames expo at London’s Tobacco Docks on April 7th – 9th 2016, where members of the public will be able to play the conspiracy-filled, story-led first-person VR game and meet members of the nDreams team.
About nDreams
nDreams was formed in 2006 by former Codemasters and Eidos Creative Director, Patrick O’Luanaigh (Tomb Raider: Legend, Hitman: Blood Money, Conflict: Desert Storm, Micro Machines V3) with a focus on virtual worlds. Since 2013, the company has exclusively dedicated its talents to developing innovative and remarkable virtual reality games and experiences. The studio has already worked on a number of VR titles – including SkyDIEving, Gunner, Perfect Beach and the upcoming The Assembly – and continues to develop multiple unannounced projects. In addition to the funding announced today, nDreams completed a $2.75 million investment round with Mercia Technologies PLC in January 2015.
