Unit1 Studio, the London-based producer of avatar concerts, has raised USD $20 million.
The company announced the financing on Monday (September 21), and said it comprises an oversubscribed equity round led by Balderton Capital plus production financing for shows currently in development. Unit1 has not broken out the split between the two.
It lands alongside what Unit1 calls a world first: the transfer of an avatar concert production from one venue to another.
Shows built around digital performers have traveled before – Base Hologram has toured productions featuring Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, and Whitney Houston – but Unit1‘s claim rests on lifting a finished production intact, screens included, and re-siting it rather than rebuilding it.
Unit1 says it has moved its KT Tunstall avatar showcase out of a west London facility and into a purpose-built studio at Tileyard London in King’s Cross, where it will develop and showcase future productions. It says the move took four days, including recalibrating the show for the new room.
The showcase was originally staged in a west London demo space belonging to Brompton Technology, the LED processing specialist that worked on the production alongside screen manufacturer ROE Visual.
That capability is the point, according to Unit1, which says the cost of building and replicating these shows has kept the format beyond the reach of most artists.
ABBA Voyage has demonstrated that audiences will turn out for concerts by artists who no longer tour, Unit1 said, but the “eye-watering costs” of developing and replicating comparable productions have been prohibitive for the majority of acts.
“ABBA Voyage proved audiences love avatar concerts but the development and relocation costs have meant the opportunity of avatar concerts is not being realized.”
Barney Wragg, Unit1 Studio
“Unit1 is, and will always be, about expanding the connection between fan and artist regardless of time or geography,” said Barney Wragg, founder of Unit1 Studio. “ABBA Voyage proved audiences love avatar concerts but the development and relocation costs have meant the opportunity of avatar concerts is not being realized.
“Our ability to develop these shows at a fraction of the cost and replicate them to any location finally makes these shows a commercial reality. The combination of our technology, new financing and our growing team, means we can develop shows for artists and fans worldwide.”
The equity round was joined by existing investors Mercuri, Gilston Music, and artist manager Paul McGuinness, who managed U2 for more than three decades.
“Until now, avatar concerts have been locked behind the economics of ABBA Voyage – a one-off, one-location proposition,” said Daniel Waterhouse, General Partner at Balderton. “Unit1’s innovative new technology will fundamentally change that, opening up the genre to a whole generation of legacy artists.
“Barney is hugely respected in the industry and has managed to solve a structural problem that everyone knew existed but nobody had cracked. As a founder, Barney brings a unique blend of creative vision and commercial nous to every project that he sets his mind to, and having followed his journey for many years I couldn’t be more delighted to formally partner for the next chapter of Unit1.”
“As a founder, Barney brings a unique blend of creative vision and commercial nous to every project that he sets his mind to, and having followed his journey for many years I couldn’t be more delighted to formally partner for the next chapter of Unit1.”
Daniel Waterhouse, Balderton Capital
Unit1 said it has expanded its board, naming John Kennedy, former Chairman and CEO of both Universal Music UK and IFPI, as a non-executive director. Kennedy was already sitting on the company’s board when it launched in October 2025.
It has also hired avatar creators Greg Meeres Young, whose credits include Planet of the Apes and The Lord of the Rings, and Sefki Ibrahim, who worked on ABBA Voyage.
Wragg, who is also Unit1‘s CEO, previously ran Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s Really Useful Group, since renamed LW Entertainment, and has held senior digital roles at AEG, EMI, and Universal Music Group.
The KT Tunstall showcase was unveiled when Unit1 launched in October 2025, timed to a 20th-anniversary reissue of the singer-songwriter’s debut album, Eye to the Telescope, which BMG and Virgin released that month.
Bloomberg reported in September 2023 that the ABBA Voyage venue was 99% full every night, and that the show was taking more than USD $2 million a week, as previously covered by MBW.
Voyage is staged in a custom-built arena in east London, and counts Sweden’s Pophouse Entertainment, co-founded by ABBA‘s Björn Ulvaeus, as its lead investor.
Pophouse has approached the format by acquiring artist rights: it closed a debut fund of more than EUR €1.2 billion (USD $1.3 billion) in March 2025, and in July 2026 acquired a stake in Iron Maiden‘s catalog, name, image, and likeness rights.
Its deal for KISS, reported to be worth more than USD $300 million, underpins an avatar show for that band – and that show is a fair illustration of the economics Unit1 says it is dismantling. The production is now due to open in Las Vegas in 2028, pushed back from an original target of 2027, and will need a purpose-built venue of its own. No site has been announced. The project has been reported at around USD $200 million.
Balderton has been building a position in music for close to two decades: it first backed Kobalt Music Group in 2008, and in February 2026 it led a USD $6 million seed round in London startup Mozart AI, a round that also included Mercuri. Waterhouse was the partner on that deal too.
Waterhouse joined Balderton as a General Partner in 2013, and sat on the board of Revolut for several years after the firm led the fintech’s first funding round in 2015.
Before that, he spent five years as a partner at Wellington Partners, where he worked on the firm’s investment in Spotify, according to his Balderton biography.
Capital has continued to move into live-entertainment technology through 2026. Fever, the owner of ticketing platform DICE, raised USD $250 million led by EQT on September 17, in a round the company called the largest ever for a live-entertainment tech company.
Unit1 says its shows break the “fourth wall” between screen content and live experience, and are pitched at what it calls the “TikTok & Netflix generation” as well as at longtime fans of the artists involved.Music Business Worldwide
