RETìníZE closes £2 million seed investment round led by Sure Valley Ventures
Date Posted: March 16, 2022
RETìníZE Limited, the award-winning creative-tech company based in Belfast, has closed a £2 million seed round led by Sure Valley Ventures, the founder-led VC firm that invests in high growth software companies. RETìníZE is developing an innovative software product called Animotive that is harnessing the latest VR technologies to transform the 3D animation production process. This investment will drive the next two-year step in its growth journey and the global rollout of Animotive.
This seed round, led by Sure Valley Ventures with a £1 million investment, is the first investment from its recently announced £95 million UK Software Fund, which included a cornerstone £50 million investment from the British Business Bank.
Sure Valley Venture is joined in this round by investors from the UK, USA, Ireland and the Netherlands:
- TechStart Ventures – leading investor of seed capital across Scotland and Northern Ireland, following on from their 2019 pre-seed investment in RETìníZE
- VGC Partners – London based investor building great companies at the intersection of physical and digital commerce
- Clarendon/Co-fund NI – equity fund based in Northern Ireland that co-invest with business angels and private investors
- Angel investor association of founders – based in the Netherlands
- Bertram van Munster & Elise Doganieri – multi Emmy award-winning producers behind the CBS hit show “the Amazing Race”
- Ben Morrow – Senior Product Manager, Adobe Aero (Adobe’s AR creation tool)
RETìníZE CEO, Phil Morrow, said: “We are thrilled to have Sure Valley on board as our lead investor – they have a deep knowledge of the creative tech sector and what impressed us most was the time they took to really understand and challenge our long-term goals and objectives. This investment will supercharge our growth trajectory and will allow us to take Animotive to the international market.”
Sure Valley Ventures Principal, Isabelle O’Keeffe, said: “We are delighted to support RETìníZE hot on the heels of launching our new software fund, as this innovative company enters an exciting new phase. We recognise that the immersive software sector is poised for exponential growth, and the plans that RETìníZE has for Animotive will position the company at the forefront of this expansion. We will continue to identify new opportunities in Metaverse, AI and Cybersecurity as we deploy our Fund II capital, with a focus on UK companies which are bringing a disruptive innovation to market, like RETìníZE.”
