UK based developer nDreams today announced the closure of a new $3 million (£2 million) investment, the second this year for the studio.
Bringing the studio’s total fundraising in 2015 to $5.75 million, nDreams has raised an additional $3 million. The capital comes from Mercia Technologies, the same UK based technology investment firm that was behind the studio’s $2.75 million round raised in early 2015.
The studio says that the new funds will help continue development of their own titles as well as open the door to offering publishing support to indie VR studios.
nDreams was founded in 2006 by former Eidos Creative Director, Patrick O’Luanaigh. The company says that it was the “largest global publisher in PlayStation Home,” a virtual social world that launched on Sony’s PlayStation 3 system in 2008. Since then, nDreams has been actively involved in the consumer VR space since quite early on, with one of its first experiments into the new medium being SkyDIEving in 2013 as well as the founding of our friendly VR media neighbors, VR Focus, in 2014.
Most recently the studio has created Gunner, a turret-shooter for Gear VR, and The Assembly, a “story-led adventure” game headed to PlayStation VR and PC VR headsets.
Along with the investment announcement, nDreams is also announcing a number of new hires and also says they’re looking for further hires.
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 and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.