Unit1 raises $20 million to make avatar concerts tour
For a decade, a concert built around a photorealistic digital performer has meant building it in one place and leaving it there. ABBA Voyage cost roughly £140 million and still runs in the single London arena built for it.
For a decade, a concert built around a photorealistic digital performer has meant building it in one place and leaving it there. ABBA Voyage cost roughly £140 million and still runs in the single London arena built for it.
UK startup Unit1 Studio just showed that does not have to be permanent. The company moved its KT Tunstall avatar concert — live musicians, motion capture, projection and staging together — between two London venues in four days. Unit1 raised $20 million this month in an oversubscribed round led by Balderton Capital, joined by former U2 manager Paul McGuinness, to take that portability to a wider roster of shows.
Fixed-venue economics have kept this category rare: a handful of marquee builds, each too expensive to risk moving. A production that relocates in days instead of months turns an avatar concert from a permanent installation into a touring format — the difference between a spectacle and a business.
