Tangentix

Growth Fund - Loans & Equity Case Study

The Company

Tangentix Ltd, based at the Electric Works in Sheffield, is a leading provider of advanced compression & distribution technology for 3D video-games.

The company is gaining global recognition for offering publishers, gamers and operators of digital distribution systems a more compact product to increase download speeds.

Tangentix started as a spin-out from the University of Bradford in 2009, based on new algorithms to represent 3D objects. Since then, the company has developed a suite of tools and patents to cover different aspects of compressing all of the main components of a video game, including the 3D meshes, textures, sounds and video.

The result is that games are typically one third the size of the originals, whilst retaining the same high quality.

The Challenge

Tangentix, which currently employs ten staff, is now embarking on showcasing its new technology to the sector and debuted its latest innovations at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco in March 2013.

Edward French, Chief Executive of Tangentix Ltd, said: “We believe the growing size of games is a real challenge for publishers and gamers. We can now show the world that what we’ve developed addresses the problem, whilst also providing a great new way for gamers to discover new games”

The Solution

The company has secured £1.4 million in funding to support its growth in the video games industry.

Finance Yorkshire provided a total of £750,000 from both its Equity Linked and Seedcorn Funds.

Other investors in the round included RisingStars Growth Fund II and ParkWalk Advisors.

Mr French added: “The funding marks a major milestone for Tangentix as we work to implement our compression technology in multiple AAA titles, and deploy a new concept for game discovery.”

The Investment Rationale

Ashwin Kumaraswamy from Finance Yorkshire’s Seedcorn Fund said: “Tangentix will transform the experience of discovering, buying and delivery of video game content, improving the gamer’s experience, while reducing the publishers’ costs of distributing video games.

“The funding from Finance Yorkshire’s Seedcorn and Equity Linked Funds is another example of how both can work together to provide the correct finance package a business requires to support its growth ambitions.”

Future Expectations

Darren Morris from Finance Yorkshire’s Equity Linked team added: “The 3D video game market is huge and the technology Tangentix has developed represents a step change in downloading top quality games. The company is in a strong position to exploit the global demand to download games.”

Note: this case study is from Finance Yorkshire’s previous fund. Read more about Finance Yorkshire