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Check out the 14-slide pitch deck CGHero, a startup that connects artists with gaming and metaverse jobs, used to raise $5.2 million
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- A startup that connects 3D games artists with jobs has just raised £4 million ($5.2 million).
- CGHero has seen an “explosion in demand” due to increased interest in the metaverse.
- Check out the 14-slide pitch deck the company used to raise cash from transatlantic firm Beringea.
A startup that connects 3D games artists with jobs has just raised £4 million ($5.2 million).
British company CGHero, a marketplace that connects companies and brands with talent, will use the fresh funds to scale its platform as the metaverse increases demand for niche skills like virtual reality specialists and digital hair stylists.
Artists sign up to CGHero, which was founded in 2017, as freelancers and are matched with suitable jobs, working on a project-to-project basis. Companies using the platform can choose to work with freelancers directly or outsource to a “studio,” which is a team of freelancers put together and managed by CGHero.
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The platform caters to over 60 specialist industry tasks, with hundreds of vetted freelancers available under each one. This includes texturing, where a realistic or stylized surface is added to a 3D model, rigging, which refers to adding bodily features like bones and muscles to characters, and hair or fur grooming – all of which are important to give digital worlds the right look and feel.
“The scale and complexity of games and metaverse projects has grown at a staggering pace driven by the demand for ever more realistic experiences that replicate our real world,” cofounder Jonathan Lloyd told Insider.
“This intersection of technical and artistic skill requires increasingly more specialist individuals to deliver experiences from the simulation of environments and weather systems to replication of materials such as clothing, even virtual grooming artists capable of producing hair and fur.”
Lloyd added that it is standard practice to hire multiple games studios at once, be it for specialist teams or to “get through the crunch.”
The platform allows games or metaverse companies to scale up and down virtual production teams, reacting to project needs. “You only need people at a certain time; you have liquidity of talent,” Lloyd said.
The company reported an “explosion in demand” for 3D content as interest in the metaverse soared, kickstarted by Facebook’s rebrand to Meta. It boasts a client list including Epic Games, SEGA, NHS, BBC, Valvoline, LG, and Unilever.
It also caters to the retail sector. There is a big opportunity here due to the current disconnect between online and offline experiences, Lloyd said. For example, discovering clothes in-store versus searching for something online. “The metaverse changes it all,” the cofounder added.
The cash injection will be used to scale headcount from 17 people to 35 in the next 12 months. It is recruiting across marketing, sales, development, product and operations.
Some 75% of its business comes from US and Canada, the company said. It is doubling-down on this with plans to hiring a remote US team this year and a physical office in 2023.
The round, which was led by Beringea, brings CGHero’s total raised to £5.2 million ($6.9 million), which includes an Epic Games MegaGrant it won last year.
Check out the 14-slide pitch deck it used to raise the fresh funds below.
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