nDreams secures £2.7m further investment
Apax Partners' Paul Fitzsimons joins as Chairman, Geomerics' Rob Precious made non-executive director
Farnborough, Hampshire, UK - nDreams Ltd., the UK's largest independent virtual reality (VR) developer and publisher, has today announced that it has completed a £2 million follow-on investment from Mercia Technologies and an additional £700,000 from private investors.
nDreams are targeting rapid growth over the next year as the VR market continues to expand and this is reflected in the five VR titles they have in production, including Bloody Zombies, which won a "Best VR Game" award at the recent E3 show, as well as being nominated for three further awards.
In addition, nDreams has recently appointed Paul Fitzsimons, a former partner at Apax Partners, a leading Private Equity group, as its new Chairman. Rob Precious, the former Director of Business Development at Geomerics/ARM, has also joined the Board as Non-Executive Director. There are plans to hire a CFO and COO in the coming months to further strengthen the senior team.
The investment and additions to the board come at the same time nDreams signed a major deal to bring exclusive new content to a major VR arcade company, with more news of this to follow over the coming months. This move into the virtual reality arcade space follows a successful 12 months for nDreams with content released on PC, console and mobile VR platforms, and is just one of a number of recent deals with key third-party companies.
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, said: "nDreams continues to thrive within the VR market, a sector expected to be worth in excess of $30billion 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."