Backing Creative Innovators
Creative Enterprise is a unique programme developed in by Creative England, supported by UKBAA and funded by the British Film Institute, that showcases the incredible investment opportunities offered by UK screen-focused businesses.
In the UK, the creative industries contribute over 115b GVA to the economy, with well over £8bn of that attributed to businesses from the creative screen-based sub sectors, yet despite this immense contribution, the creative industries remain an extremely undeserved area for early stage investment.
Investor Events
Innovative Founders
Investors Engaged
Expert Speakers
The Programme
Working together, UKBAA and Creative England seek to identify the key barriers and myths that are standing in the way of investors engaging with the creative industries. By taking a deep-dive into the creative screen-based space, the investor stream of Creative Enterprise Evolve unveils the budding opportunities in the creative sector for angels and takes them on a journey to discover what AR/VR, animation, games, high-end and children’s TV, film and content creation have to offer.
Now in the 4th year of this programme, we are thrilled to be presenting a series of exciting events where investors from across the UK will be invited to get involved and meet the 2022 Evolve cohort, hear about their business propositions, as well as meet other like-minded investors.
Investor Events
Creative Enterprise Evolve is multifaceted investment programme designed for investors to highlight the budding opportunities offered by creative screen-focused businesses. In this unique programme, we seek to increase access to high-growth potential creative industry innovators, each who are representing a variety of creative sub-sectors.
Looking at the creative industries with a view on the impressive screen-based sector, this programme will help investors engage with 12 businesses from Creative England’s Evolve cohort, each making their way through an exciting creative growth programme. This programme will spotlight the following sub-sectors and more:
- AR and VR
- Animation
- Games
- High-end and Children’s TV
- Media
The investor dinner series is a unique dinner experience where a selection of early-stage investors seeking to hear more from creative innovators and network with fellow investors, will be invited to join UKBAA and Creative England for a private 3-course dinner featuring pitch presentation from up to 4 businesses.
Taking place on 3 different dates between the months of January-March 2023, investors will be invited to join us in Mayfair, London for a unique evening of pitching, engaging conversations, network building, and accessing exciting deal flow.
These dinners are exclusively investor only and spaces are extremely limited, reserved for only those actively deploying capital into early stage businesses. If you are interested in attending one of the dinners, we invite you to register your interest to join us. Priority will be given to those actively investing in the creative sector or seeking to understand more about the sector.
On Wednesday 29th March, we are delighted to be presenting the next Investing in Creative Innovation pitch event.
From the explosive opportunities in games, animation, and visual effects, to pinpointing the thriving innovations offered by interactive entertainment, high-end TV and content production – UKBAA, Creative England and the British Film Institute are thrilled to invite investors to hear from a curated group of creative innovators pitching for investment.
Investors are welcomed to join us for an evening of exciting pitches, Q&A with the founders, networking, and drinks to celebrate the high-growth potential of the sector.
When Investment Meets Creativity
The Evolve Cohort
This year, Creative England is working with a brilliant mixture of innovative screen-based businesses from around the UK. Since September, Creative England have been working with the cohort through a mixture of 1-2-1 mentoring and group sessions to support them on their investment journey.
As part of this exciting journey, the businesses will engage with UKBAA’s investment community through our rolling Evolve investor dinner series and the end-of-year pitching event.
Find out more about the businesses below.
Aphetor is a new sports/entertainment media platform that gives GenZ sport on their terms: their heroes in the content formats they love on the channels that dominate their media consumption.
Aphetor is “The Creator Games”, an epic series of global, multi-challenge events where the competitors are the world’s best Content Creators. We put our content in their hands, giving them a platform to create their best-ever content and new ways to engage their fans, resulting in a vast ecosystem of killer content and an aggregated audience of millions that disrupts the traditional media models of sport and entertainment.
Diva Creative is a Yorkshire-based creative agency. Established in 2000, the company employs 21 people and delivers a wide range of creative products including screen, digital marketing, website and app development.
The company has increasingly focused on storytelling and screen and has recently invested in developing a new product – GeoStories – that uses AR, animation and audio drama in an app-based setting, with GPS triggers for story content as the audience is immersed in the experience.
We have a strong opportunity to rapidly grow GeoStories as a separate entity, and therefore intend to focus on GeoStories within the Evolve programme.
Green Bean Studios is an entertainment media company empowering children globally to learn, discover, nurture and enjoy the world’s natural resources around them, through the areas of retail, music, TV, film and immersive events/attractions.
Multiview Media Limited is a UK-based digital technology that allows fans to be the director. They take single-angle video platforms & make them multi-angle. More angles mean more real estate and more data. They work across music, sport, esports and education to provide an accessible, affordable and interactive alternative to current digital content providers.
Multiview Media have featured at CES 2021 and London tech week as Createch’s “one to watch”. Their advisory team include ex-Director of Apple, ex-CTO of Universal Music & ex-COO of Barclays. Clients include major single angle video platforms including Bitmovin (BBC/ F1 ), Brightcove (Adobe / SXSW) & Theo technologies (CNN / NBC).
Nocturnal Pictures is an independent film production company based in Kent, producing dark, high-concept story-driven narratives excelling in the action, horror and Sci-Fi genres.
Comprised of highly enthusiastic individuals with an intense work ethic and a passion for storytelling, Nocturnal Pictures combines the perfect balance of ingenious creativity and strategic business execution.
To date, Nocturnal Pictures have produced four short films and their debut feature film “The Last Rite” which sold to Samuel Goldwyn Films and has been released worldwide. Nocturnal Pictures has a slate of genre movies in various stages of development.
Established in 1996, Outsource Media provides performance services for games, VR, Film, & emerging media. They also specialise in casting, voice recording, MOCAP, performance and face capture.
The Format Factory is an award-winning – and truly independent – content creator and production company founded by Barry Ryan and David Walton in 2017 to create, curate and produce unscripted content across genres.
As well as creating and producing content the Format Factory works with IP creators to create a bridge between creatives and commissioners and help people make their content happen. The Format Factory holds the Free@Last TV archives. Prior to specialising in scripted, Free@Last TV produced over 450 hours of non-scripted television for a large range of broadcasters.
Peanut & Crumb is an award-winning multiplatform storytelling studio delivering branded film content, broadcast programmes, podcasts, photography, games and VR alongside media strategy, media coaching and PR. Strategy and creativity through to production and PR, all under one roof. This integrated production and communications model creates high-quality transmedia content, building valuable audiences to migrate across platforms for brands, broadcasters as well as our owned channels.
Whitepot Studios is a game development studio based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, founded by Adam Whiteside and Vicky Potts in 2016. The company not only makes their own IP, but also carries out work-for-hire as Unity paramedics who port, polish, produce, and prototype.
The Investor Dinner Series
The investor dinner series presented in partnership by UKBAA and Creative England offers a unique opportunity to network with fellow investors, hear from a curated group of screen-focused start-ups, and engage in discussions around exciting creative sector developments all over a 3-course meal.
This dinner series will be presented on 3 different dates between January to March and is exclusively invite only. Those attending must be actively investing in early-stage businesses and have an interest in the creative sector or a desire to better understand it and the opportunities offered by companies in the space.
Investors are invited to register their interest to find out more about the opportunity to attend a dinner event. Follow the link and select the events you are interest in.
Please note, registering your interest does not guarantee a spot at the event.
Take our survey
Have you taken part in the UKBAA and Creative England Evolve activities in the past? If so, we want to hear from you!
Take the surveyEvolve Pitching Event
Date: 29 March 2023
Time: 17:00-20:15
Address: BFI, Belvedere Road, South Bank, London, SE1 8XT
To round out a successful year, we’ll be spotlighting a curated group of the Evolve entrepreneurs as they pitch for investment in their creative technology businesses. Whether you are investing on your own as an angel, as part of a group, or on behalf of a fund, we invite you to join us to hear from 8 brilliant start-ups, network with fellow investors and tap into exciting investment opportunities.
Taking place in the heart of London at the ever-fitting British Film Institute Southbank, we invite investors from across the UK to book their place to attend this annual showcase event. The presenting businesses will be announced in due course, but until then, put the date in the diary, book your spot, and stay tuned!
Please note, these events are for investors only.
Presented in Partnership
UKBAA is the national trade association for angel and early-stage investment, representing over 650 members that collectively deploy in excess of £2bn per annum.
Our members include angel groups, individual investors, early-stage VCs, equity investment platforms, family offices, universities and accelerators. We are a not-for-profit organisation, run by and for our members.
Led by Creative England and made possible by the British Film Institute and National Lottery, Evolve is a programme for high-potential screen-based companies and technology platforms that innovate across video games, visual effects and animation, immersive media and film and TV.
Find out more about the programme here: Evolve
Explore content from the programme to date
UKBAA and Creative England, with the support of British Film Institute, have presented Evolve since 2019. Over the course of the programme, there has been a series of webinars, spotlight articles, feature blogs and much more. Check them all out below!
Interview with Interflix
Evolve alumni shares his incredible journey
The launch of 2021 – 2022 Evolve
Meet the latest cohort
Innovation and Creativity
The activity from the latest Evolve programme
Interview with Ian Livingstone CBE
Co-founding Partner, Hiro Capital
Fireside Chat: Mehjabeen Patrick
Former CFO & COO, Creative England
Exploring the UK Animation Sector
Investor Round Table Virtual Event
Interview with James McClurg
Startup Investments & Partnerships, Sky