Iconic AI, an AAA games studio in London specialising in AI-driven game development, has scored $4 million in an oversubscribed pre-seed funding round.
The round was led by HodlCo, with participation from FOV Ventures, Interface Capital, Deepwater Asset Management, and scout funds from Sequoia and Atomico. It also attracted investment from notable current and former senior executives at DeepMind, OpenAI, Disney, Tencent, and Microsoft.
The new funding will be strategically utilised to expand the core team, enhance R&D capabilities, and accelerate the release of Iconic AI’s first game.
The idea behind Iconic AI
Iconic AI was founded by John Lusty and Junaid Hussain met in 2023. John, who made his first game at age five on a Commodore PET, has worked with Ninja Theory, Square Enix, Oculus, and Five AI. Junaid, after investing in over a dozen gaming and emerging technology companies. On meeting John, he realised that together they could build a company with the pioneering and deeply technical culture that originally drove the birth of the gaming industry.
The founders decided to build an AI-first studio for the modern age, assembling a top-tier team combining expertise in game development, creative production, and deep tech R&D from the likes of DeepMind, Rockstar, Pixar, and Sony.
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