London's Unit1 Studio has secured $20m, close to £15m, in an oversubscribed equity round led by Balderton Capital alongside additional production financing. Existing backers Mercuri, Gilston Music and former U2 manager Paul McGuinness followed on.
Unit1 was founded last year by Barney Wragg, who spent five years running Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group and previously held senior roles at AEG, EMI and Universal Music Group. The company produces avatar concerts: live shows in which digital recreations of musicians perform alongside human players on stage.
Balderton led the equity round through general partner Daniel Waterhouse, an early backer of Spotify whose firm has also funded Kobalt and Revolut. Existing investors Mercuri, Gilston Music and McGuinness, who managed U2 from the late 1970s until 2013, participated. EU-Startups put the combined equity and production financing at €23.3m. Valuation and the size of the stake taken were not disclosed.
The pitch is a cost argument rather than a technology one. ABBA Voyage, which opened in a purpose-built east London arena in 2022, proved audience demand but tied the format to a single venue and a development budget few artists or estates can justify. Unit1 is selling a production that can be relocated, and in principle staged in several countries at once.
The company says it moved its KT Tunstall demonstration concert from Brompton Technology's testing facility in Gunnersbury to a permanent studio at Tileyard London in four days. It is targeting shows that recoup development costs within twelve months, closer to the economics of a touring theatre production than a bespoke residency.
Proceeds will fund research and development, plus intellectual property and licensing agreements with artists and their estates. Those rights deals are the commercial bottleneck, and the sensitivity of recreating dead performers is real: plans earlier this year for an avatar of the late Ozzy Osbourne drew criticism from fans.
Unit1 has added Jonathan Butterell as creative director and Pavle Mihajlovic as technical director, with John Kennedy, former chairman and chief executive of Universal Music UK, joining the board as a non-executive. No artists have been named; the company says announcements will follow once tickets go on sale.
Original source: The Guardian — https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/sep/20/uk-startup-15m-investment-concerts-digital-versions-musicians
