UK-based Condense secures €4.3M to bring live events into the metaverse: here’s how

Bristol, UK-based Condense, a company that claims to be the world’s first to deliver the power, connection and immersiveness of live, real-world events in the metaverse, announced on Thursday that it has raised $4.5M (approximately €4.39M) in a Seed round of funding.

The company says it will use the proceeds to accelerate commercial relationships with artists, labels, content creators, and metaverse platforms.

The company also announced that it has opened the world’s first metaverse studio in partnership with Watershed, Bristol’s cultural cinema and creative technology venue. Condense aims to give established artists and emerging talent access to the technology. The studio is a “metaverse-first” event space and can also accommodate a live audience.

In a statement, the company says that it is in partnership with another organisation and soon a London studio will be opened followed by other studios internationally.

Investors in this round

The round was led by LocalGlobe, 7percent Ventures and Deeptech Labs, alongside angel investors including a platinum-selling grime artist, former England footballer and sports presenter, Tom Blomfield (Monzo), renowned music manager Grace Ladoja MBE, and Ian Hogarth, co-founder and Chairman of SongKick.

Ziv Reichert, partner at LocalGlobe, says, “Hundreds of millions of people are hanging out in immersive 3D platforms like Roblox, Rec Room, Fortnite, Sandbox, Decentraland and VRChat; attending virtual events, socialising and being creative. At the same time, player demand for live entertainment inside these virtual worlds has never been greater. Condense has built the infrastructure to connect the two – now music artists, sports stars and creatives can perform and play live in the metaverse, to the largest stadium audience imaginable.”

Bringing live events into the metaverse

Founded in 2019 and led by CEO Nick Fellingham, Condense wants to provide an end-to-end capture and streaming technology to live stream real-world events like music and sports events into 3D applications.

The company’s first product, Condense Live, enables music and sports rights holders to stream live volumetric video directly into online games platforms, creating brand new player experiences and revenue streams.

To provide such services, Condense uses computer vision, machine learning and proprietary streaming infrastructure to capture and embed live 3D videos (Video 3.0) into any metaverse game, mobile app or platform created with Unity or Unreal Engine.

This means that authentic live concerts can now be streamed without the usage of VR headsets into the virtual worlds and gaming platforms used by billions of people worldwide. The company says every player’s perspective is as unique and dynamic as if they were at a real-world live event, and their experience is just as memorable because the events are streamed live as three-dimensional “real-world” video.

What does Video 3.0 offer?

Co-founder Nick Fellingham says, “The Bristol scene has long been a world-renowned melting pot of different cultures and music and, in the last few years, it’s become a hub for games development too. Now we’re going to put Bristol on the map once again with the world’s first metaverse live streaming studio to bring together the energy of live events with the massive scale of the metaverse.”

“The Video 3.0 infrastructure we’ve built takes out the technical complexity of streaming live into the metaverse, so people are free to put their creativity in. Video 3.0 is going to change not just how we experience live events online, but fundamentally how we engage with each other,” adds Fellingham.

Bristol-based vocalist and producer Grove, who was among the first artists to pioneer Condense technology, says, “The minds behind the technology are pushing the boundaries of tech-informed performance sharing. This is great for accessibility and opens up exciting new opportunities for fans to connect with their favourite artists.” Here’s a video of Grove performing live, captured and streamed by Condense in Video 3.0.

According to Condense, fans can enjoy entirely new online experiences through Video 3.0. It will offer viewers the ability to walk through the virtual crowds and stand right in the middle of the action, and attend concerts or sporting events with friends. Because performances are live, fans can also interact with the artist while artists can respond in real-time, giving shout-outs, answering questions or performing a requested track.

This could provide artists, rights holders and metaverse platforms the opportunity to create a new revenue stream.