👋 Welcome 👋
The folk with the money must know this newsletter is celebrating it's first anniversary and have put on a bumper crop of opportunities for everyone this month with the most Funding Opportunities (16) and most Awards Opportunities (9) there's ever been in a month :) Good luck with them all, and as always, please let me know of any opportunities I've missed to include next month for everyone else's benefit (particularly for non-UK devs!), and forward this mail anyone else you know that might benefit from it.
💲 Funding 💲
[Scot] CivTech 4.0 Challenges
Deadline 12th August (round 1) and 21th August (round 2). Part of the Scottish Government’s Digital Directorate, CivTech brings together public expertise and private sector creativity to solve real problems, develop new products and deliver better services and make people’s lives better.
[🇪🇺] New pilot project for Cultural and Creative Industries
Deadline 12th August. This new Creative Europe pilot call will focus on supporting learning and innovation in the cultural and creative industries.
[🌎] Knight/Microsoft call-for-ideas: Immersive technology in the arts
Deadline 13th August. The call offers recipients a share of $750,000 in funding, as well as optional technical support from Microsoft, including mixed-reality mentorship and technology access and training.
[🇬🇧] Stelios Awards for Disabled Entrepreneurs
Deadline 10th September. Prize money totalling £100k.
[🇬🇧] Innovate UK Innovation Loans
Deadline 11th September. Up to £10m in loans to SMEs for game-changing late stage innovations with strong commercial potential that will significantly improve the UK economy.
[ENG] Creative England Greenshoots £100k funding
Deadline 11th August. Offers up to £100k per developer. Must be in England but outside Greater London. Must include a dedicated version for Windows 10, distributed via the Windows 10 Store, and/or Xbox One.
[🌎] Cartier Women's Initiative
Deadline 14th August. Female entrepreneurs running for-profit businesses that meet at least one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals with over 1 year of revenue. 7 regional winners each win $100k. A further 14 runners up each win $30k, and all get high level coaching, workshops and media exposure.
[🇪🇺] Horizon2020 Accelerator pilot
Deadline 5th September. €50k available to "high risk" European companies looking to do market research, user testing, IP management, or feasibility assessment etc. The funding is to formulate a solid, high-potential innovation project with a European or global growth-oriented strategy.
[🇬🇧] EUREKA: Singapore open competition
Deadline 19th September. UK businesses can apply for a share of up to £1 million to develop innovative proposals with Singapore and other EUREKA countries.
[🇪🇺] Cinemas as innovation hubs
Deadline 25th September. Total of €2 million to projects that test new initiatives in regard to rethinking the cinema experience. [CM; eSports, AR and geolocation gamification possibilities here].
[🇬🇧] Strength in Places Fund - UK Research and Innovation
Deadline 9th October. £50k funding to support innovation-led relative regional growth with local collaborations involving research and innovation.
[🇪🇺] XR4ALL Open Call
Deadline 31st October. A total of €1.5M is available and the maximum funding per selected project is €50,000, to develop new XR solutions e.g. plugins for games engines such as Unity, low level components based on open APIs, standards and frameworks such as SolAR, or any XR Application.
[🇪🇺] Horizon 2020 Interactive Technologies
Deadline 13th November. Develop AR/VR authoring tools for automated interactive content creation or develop solutions where the use of such technology is not mainstream. Focus should be on developing richer virtual environments, new user interfaces and improved immersion maximizing the feeling of presence. Budgets expected but not limited to being EUR 1.5-2 million with a duration from 12 to 24 months.
[🌎] Virtual Beings Grants
Deadline 17th September. Awards up of to $25k for projects focussed on avatars / digital humans.
[🌎] ROKiT Launches $50m Game Development Fund
Although seemingly can't afford an official website or corporate email to post this on, so not sure how real this one really is folks 🤷
🏆 Awards 🏆
[🇪🇺] TIGA Games Industry Awards 2019
Deadline 9th August. Game entries are free, business entries must be Tiga members.
[🌎] 2020 Independent Games Festival
Deadline 30th September. Winners compete for over $20,000 in prizes awarded at GDC 2020.
[🌎] Game Development World Championship 2019
Deadline 30th September. The Game Development World Championship is an annual competition for Game developers, game development students and anyone interested in game development to join in.
[MENA] International Mobile Gaming Awards
Deadline 30th September. Celebrating the best mobile games made in the Middle East and North African region. Free entry.
[🌎] VR/AR Submissions now Being Accepted for the Busan International Film Festival
Deadline 31st August. Submissions will also be entered into awards where they’ll be eligible for an $18,000 prize pool.
Funding Assistance
Speech Graphics bring 3D characters to life
As used in Fortnite, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Gears of War 4, Call of Duty WWII, Shadow of Mordor, Beyond a Steel Sky, State of Decay 2 and more.
📸 Showcase 📸
[🌎] Leftfield @ EGX 2019 open for submissions
Deadline 23rd August. If selected there's no cost to exhibit at EGX 2019, which takes place at the Excel Centre, London, 17th-20th October 2019. All games and game-like things are welcome, and we're especially interested in accommodating custom hardware and unusual games. The Leftfield is there to showcase everything from small hobby projects and interactive things, to interesting and beautiful commercial work.
⏩ Accelerators ⏩
[🇬🇧] Virgin Step Up
Deadline 13th September. A free, two-day, pre-accelerator programme for founders looking to scale their start-up.
[🇬🇧] Augmentor, a Digital Catapult accelerator for AR and VR startups
Deadline 6th September. Augmentor is a 12-week accelerator programme offering early stage immersive companies technical and business mentorship, access to state-of-the-art facilities and regular check-ins with investors.
💬 Speaker Calls 💬
🔧 Resources 🔧
[🌎] Games Industry Funding Guide
Lists over 200 publishers, investors and other sources of games funding.
[🇬🇧] Digital Refer online directory
An online directory of more than 230 organisations for entrepreneurs seeking startup or R&D funding in the UK; ranging from accelerator programmes, business incubators and start-up studios to angel investors networks, venture capital funds and corporate venture capital firms.
📚 Book Club 📚
Upscale: What it takes to scale a startup. By the people who've done it.
Amazingly readable book, with relatable advice from tech leaders such as Skyscanner, JustEat etc.
💤 Housekeeping 💤
- Please forward this to anyone else you think may appreciate it, and they can subscribe here
- If you know of any funding/award/speaker call that should be included in the future, please email me at colin@all4games.co.uk - particularly for any available available beyond just the UK!!
- This newsletter is monthly, but if you'd like a weekly roundup of the latest news from the games industry you can subscribe to that separately here