March 2019 – Sure Ventures

Sure Ventures Plc – Attendance at the UK Investor Show 2019

Posted on 29th March 2019 by shardadmin

SURE VENTURES PLC, the London listed venture capital fund, which invests in early stage software companies across a range of verticals, is pleased to announce that it will be participating in the UK Investor Show, Britain’s largest one-day investor event, on Saturday 30 March 2019 at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre Westminster, London, SW1P 3EE.

SURE VENTURES CIO, Barry Downes, and a cross section of the Company’s investee companies will be exhibiting at the event on stands 101, 102 and 103. These include:

Wia – a ground-breaking Internet of Things (IoT) cloud platform, enabling developers to turn any type of sensor device into a secure, smart and useful application in a matter of minutes.
Artomatix – Creative Artificial Intelligence (AI) software technology that cuts the cost of content creation for animated movies, video games, 3D and AR/VR applications by over 85% through AI automation.
Admix – with over 200 million ad requests to the platform from developers in February 2019, Admix is the first monetisation platform for XR, empowering global VR/AR developers to monetise their content through non-intrusive advertising – ads that do not disrupt or interrupt, but are instead integrated within the content as product placements.
VividQ – a deep tech software company with world-leading expertise in real-time 3D holography, the next generation of display technology. VividQ’s revolutionary digital light shaping technology makes 3D holographic screens a viable commercial display solution, by generating multiple-depth holographic images on standard computing power.
Provision – an IoT fleet management system which provides CameraMatics solutions for commercial fleets. Provision delivers products that allow fleet managers to reduce fleet risk, increase driver safety and comply with growing governance and compliance regulations. Provision clients report savings in claim payouts from 15% to >50%, and per vehicle savings as high as €/$/£2,000 per year and payback in as quickly as 3 months.
VR Education Holdings Plc (AIM: VRE) – a multi award winning VR/AR software firm dedicated to changing how educational content and corporate training are provided and consumed globally. VR Education Holdings PLC is well known for their showcase experiences including Apollo 11 VR, Titanic VR, ER VR Medical, and Berlin Blitz. The core focus of the business is the ENGAGE virtual reality education and corporate training platform that allows educators, third-party developers, and corporate trainers to create and share their own content within the ENGAGE publishing platform.
Immotion Group Plc (AIM: IMMO) – focused on the delivery of out of home, location-based VR experiences. Immotion provides a complete ‘end to end’ solution including hardware (motion platforms with VR) and software (experiences) to theme parks, shopping malls, cinemas and Family Entertainment Centres. An Immotion VR simulator will be located at at stand 134 for attendees to experience its VR worlds.

More details on the event can be found via the following link: www.ukinvestorshow.com

Sure Ventures plc Follow-on Investment in WarDucks

Posted on 22nd March 2019 by shardadmin

SURE VENTURES PLC, the London listed venture capital fund, which invests in early stage software companies across a range of verticals, is pleased to announce that Suir Valley Ventures (‘Suir Valley’), it which it holds a circa 23% interest, has participated in a €3.3 million investment round, at a valuation of led by EQT Ventures fund for WarDucks, the Dublin-based augmented reality (‘AR’) game development studio. The funds raised will be used to drive the development of WarDucks’ new location-based AR game and expand its development team.

Suir Valley was an initial seed investor in September 2017, investing €300,000 in WarDucks in the seed round and this has led to a 4X unrealised gain. Suir Valley has followed-on and maintained its 10% holding in the new funding round and remain supportive of WarDucks and its future potential.

CEO Nikki Lannen, formerly a senior member of Facebook’s gaming team, founded WarDucks (www.warducks.com) in 2013 with the aim of creating world-class content for mobile, AR and VR platforms. It has attracted global talent to work on its latest AR game including gaming legend John Romero as a creative consultant. Co-founder of the BAFTA award-winning Romero Games studio and winner of more than 100 awards, Romero is best known for his work on Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM, DOOM II and Quake. WarDucks has also hired Doug Kaufman, the game designer behind Civilization II and Frontierville, as its lead game designer, and Lawrence Schick, who was previously at ZeniMax where he was Loremaster on the Elder Scrolls Online, as lead narrative designer.

SURE VENTURES CIO, Barry Downes, said, “We are delighted to be part of this investment round as WarDucks focuses on launching a new location-based AR reality mobile game. Traction for these games continues to gain momentum; for example, Pokemon Go has made $2 billion since it launched and is still making over $2 million a day. Notably, our fellow investor EQT Ventures, discovered WarDucks using its AI platform Motherbrain, which leverages data to identify promising start-ups. Our on-the-ground investment team were one step ahead having first invested in WarDucks in 2017.”