Iconic raises $13M seed to build AI-native, voice-driven games on device

Iconic, an interactive entertainment and AI-native platform company, has raised $13 million in its seed round, co-led by venture capital funds Kindred and Northzone, with further investment from leading industry players. 

The round also brings together a highly curated group of the world’s top AI, gaming, and system engineering leaders from Google, Meta, Disney, DeepMind and OpenAI.

Founded by John Lusty and Junaid Hussain, Iconic began in 2023 as a small, technically focused team exploring how advances in AI could enhance human creativity and transform the way players interact with and experience games.  

From the outset, the team was equally driven by a desire to improve life for developers, enhancing the creative process whilst reducing the rapidly increasing cost and complexity of building games, and it is this ethos that attracted CEO Andrew Bowell, formerly Product Head at Unity.

Through its pioneering on-device AI technology, Iconic is bringing intelligence, agency, and personalisation to the heart of the player experience, allowing game studios to build entirely new genres of games whilst driving down development costs. Earlier this year, Iconic debuted the demo of its voice-driven narrative puzzle game.

It enables every word spoken by players to actively shape the world they are playing in.  By applying SLLMs, the technology ensures that internet connectivity is not required, allowing game play across a range of environments without cloud costs or privacy issues.

Since launching with NVIDIA at Gamescom, The Oversight Bureau has received strong, consistent praise for its unique level of immersion and responsiveness.

With early prototypes demonstrating the potential of voice-driven, character-rich worlds powered by on-device intelligence, this became the backbone of Iconic’s formal launch in 2024, bringing talent from Unity, Meta, Sony, Microsoft, Cambridge University, and major gaming franchises, including GTA and Star Wars.  Andrew Bowell, CEO of Iconic, said,

“Our voice-driven gameplay experience is transforming traditional entertainment, utilising novel technology and innovative digital systems to enhance creativity, revolutionise the player experience, and redefine the boundaries of gaming.

We are excited to announce our successful seed round led by Kindred and Northzone, with further support from leading industry players, including Google, a testimony to Iconic building the next iteration of interactive entertainment.”