How to Apply

Eligible companies can apply for grants of up to £25,000.

How it will work

Established UK-based companies with a game development project at an early stage in the pipeline can apply for grants of up to £25,000. Successful applicants will begin funded work in September 2023.

All funded work must be complete by 31st March 2024.

How to Apply

To be contacted with a link to the application form, all applicants have registered with us via our Expression of Interest form.

We have received hundreds of responses and are no longer taking new registrants. Further funding opportunities will be announced later this year.

Applicants are required to upload a 2-minute pitch video and submit a written form.

  1. Submit your Expression of Interest before Wednesday 5th April 10:00 using the form linked below.
  2. After that form closes, we’ll invite those who have registered to upload a 2-minute pitch video and a written application form, with a final deadline for submission of Tuesday 16th May 10:00.
Previous Rounds

Our previous rounds have always been highly competitive. Typically, we fund around 10% of 150 to 200 applications and we plan to close the Expression of Interest form before the closing date if over-subscribed. For that reason, we strongly advise that applications are submitted as soon as they are ready. Late submission cannot be accepted. If you miss this round, we will be announcing further rounds next year.

Don’t be dismayed by the challenge. We’ve already funded over 220 companies so if you have a great team and are confident that you can deliver a great game based on your achievements to date, and you plan to grow, then your application will stand out.

Your Suitability

We expect to see stronger applications from teams and solo developers with the following attributes.  Therefore, applicants should consider the following as a baseline regarding suitability for funding:

  • You will have completed some early concept work and have either a proof-of-concept demo or other visual pre-production work, so that you can show your project in the best light with your pitch video.
  • You will have a clear idea of what your unique selling point or other market differentiator is – being able to communicate this clearly will help build confidence in your project.
  • You will have a development team, either as paid staff or contractors, that is either in place or is ready to come on board quickly if you are successful – being able to describe the specific attributes of your team helps to prove your overall development capability.
  • Your team should normally have experience of professional game development.
  • You should have done your research and have a clear idea of what the next steps are beyond the grant – who you will approach to fund the remainder of the project, how you will handle publishing, etc.
  • You should be able to describe the future of your business, how the grant will provide a positive impact on your sustainability and growth as a studio, and what your vision is beyond this individual project.

Your funded project work should be able to start in September 2023 and MUST be complete by March 2024.

Is this the right time to apply?

This funding opportunity won’t be appropriate for everyone that wants to apply right now. More recent funding calls have supported those that may be ineligible for this round of funding, and similarly, future rounds will support different applicant criteria that may suit you better.

The following qualities are of general interest to us. We wouldn’t expect any one company to have them, but we believe possessing a selection of them can be a good indicator of future potential.

These qualities are not a pre-requisite for considering your application but they do fit well with the aims of this call for applications.

For more information about the rationale for this round, read the recent Q&A with our CEO and Founder, Paul Durrant.

Your Business

Business attributes:

  • An SME with at least one employee and PAYE registration in place (typically 3 – 10+ individuals, including contractors where applicable).
  • Growing and you have plans to grow towards larger projects, recruiting talent to do so.
  • Founded by at least one individual who enjoys business, speaks the language and is pushing your business forward.
  • Working with inclusivity / diversity and supporting different voices (e.g. the BFI guidance).
  • Is not dependent on grant funding but is developing into a sustainable enterprise with profitable projects.

Your Team

Team atttributes:

  • One or more experienced/mentor-level team members in key positions who have developed and released games over several years.
  • Plans to develop your own IP or move into the own-IP space from another relevant area of business.
  • Developed and released one or more notable games together which have reviewed well and sold reasonable numbers, possibly through a publisher (or successful self-publishing).
  • Experience of successfully releasing games and then maintaining them afterwards.
  • A sizeable, visible and active player community gathered around your team and project(s).
  • Completed work-for-hire contracts for other game companies, especially notable companies with successful working practices.
  • Access to an established business support network.
  • Income / working capital.
  • The opportunity to work full-time on your project.
  • Is not dependent on grant funding but is developing into a sustainable enterprise with profitable projects.

Your Project

Project attributes:

  • A clear, evidenced and verified market opportunity, and you can demonstrate how you are going to ‘stand up to’ and ‘stand out from’ any competitors.
  • Received positive feedback and confirmation from socials, games press, publishers, focus-groups, play testers, focus-testers, or public demonstration at games expos.
  • Some early interest from publishers and you have been asked to extend or improve on a prior demo with a real possibility of being signed.
  • Is not wholly dependent on grant funding because you have other income streams / working capital / time resources.

The Application Process

  • Registered eligible applicants will be invited to formally apply from Tuesday 18th April.
  • Eligible applicants are required to complete a written submission and upload a 2 min max pitch video initially to be considered for a grant of up to £25,000.
  • We strongly recommend that all applicants read through the information below before getting started.
  • The application process is your opportunity to share details of the project, the team, your planned route to market and potential commercial opportunities your project presents to your studio.
  • You will need to have your ITL code for reference in the written application (you can find that by clicking the button below the tabs).

The deadline for submission of a full application is 10:00 Tuesday 16th May.

We are no longer taking new registrants for this funding round. Further funding opportunities will be announced later this year.

Application Support Recording

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Criteria

Eligible applicants must meet the following criteria:

  • Applications will only be accepted from registered UK-based companies and solo developers that have been established for more than 12 months.
  • Companies must have fewer than 50 employees.
  • The scale of development will be such that our support and grant will represent no more than 50% of the total costs of the project once it has been released.
  • Your project must not include gambling elements or mechanisms which could be perceived as such, or any content that we deem to be potentially reputationally damaging (solely at our discretion).
  • Games associated with emergent business models with little evidence of success are unlikely to be funded until that evidence base can be demonstrated. For more context, see our news article here.
  • Your project should be a digital game suitable for demonstration at a public consumer event (should you be invited).
  • Your project can already be in development, although we don’t support projects that have already fully launched, and do not fund work carried out prior to the grant being offered.
  • Projects following an open-development model with a live build available in a pre-release form will still be considered (but typically we don’t fund pure DLC development for a title already launched).

Applicants give us authorisation to undertake credit and other due diligence checks.

Grant Value

The maximum grant we are offering is £25,000 for approved employment costs of UK-based employees and UK-based contractors paid between September 2023 and March 2024.

Monthly claims will generally be capped at £6,000, but successful applicants can use their own resources above and beyond that if necessary.

Key Dates

Applications must be completed and submitted by 10:00 on Tuesday 16th May.

Shortlisted applicants will be invited to join the UK Games Fund review panel for online interviews in June.

If selected, funded work must be carried out between September 2023 and March 2024. 

Eligible Costs

If awarded a grant from the UK Games Fund, portfolio companies may only claim for approved employment costs for UK-based employees and UK-based contractors declared on your application form.

For the avoidance of doubt that means:

  • Gross pay costs of UK-domiciled employees paid through PAYE evidenced by payslips and bank statement entries.
  • Employers NI costs of UK domiciled employees paid through PAYE evidenced by remittance advice to HMRC and bank statement entries.
  • Detailed UK-domiciled contractor invoices exclusive of VAT (if you aren’t VAT registered you can claim the VAT element subject to agreeing with us and providing appropriate evidence) evidenced by invoice and bank statement entry showing payment.
  • We’ll expect employee and contractor charge-out rates to be consistent with industry norms and any inflated rates will require multi-year evidence of salary etc. rates.
  • No costs of any other nature will be approved. Including such costs in your application for grant money could result in negative scoring in your application.

Community Contribution

Our grants are non-repayable. Provided all grant conditions are met during and after the project, cash repayment of grant will not be required.

However, we do ask that in acceptance of the grant that your company commit to contribute senior-staff time as a mentor, judge, reviewer or speaker in support of your peers at a later, mutually convenient date. This time contribution is likely to be between 5 to 7 days for a £12,000 grant in the two years following the project. Where travel is involved your travel expenses will be met in accordance with our reimbursement policies in force at the time.

In addition, all executive directors of funded companies will be expected to make a public pledge to re-invest a fair and reasonable proportion of any significant returns in talent / IP development for the UK games ecosystem via the UK Games Fund on a discretionary basis, should their company benefit disproportionately as a result of this support.

Find your ITL Code

Find out which code you will need to use in your application form here.

ITL Code

Successful Applicants

If successful, you will be required to confirm that you can provide the following:

  • Your HMRC PAYE registration details and employer reference number.
  • Assurance that for any work on the funded project directors will pay themselves via PAYE (no dividends, director’s loan repayments, connected contractor invoices etc accepted).
  • A valid International Subsidy declaration in a form we’ll provide, taking into account the scale of funding applied for. Declarations require you to confirm other sources of public funding and when combined with a grant from us that they don’t breach limits for the time being in force.
  • Enough working capital to cover 6 weeks expenditure on the project upfront.
  • We may require you to complete an IP Housekeeping Audit (we’ll show you how).
  • Company profile information and data to help build a detailed picture of the games development sector in the UK.
  • You will need at least 6 weeks of working capital to enable you to draw down the grant, which must be claimed monthly after incurring and defraying your costs. Grant claims are paid in arrears monthly.

You should only apply if you can provide the above.

You must be ready to start work on your funded project with one month (4 weeks) of issue of a formal Offer Letter of Grant from the UK Games Fund.

FAQS

If you’ve got any further questions, please refer to our FAQs.

Read FAQs

Unsuccessful applicants

No correspondence will be entered into and there is no appeal.

In some cases, we may suggest re-applying to future funding calls after you’ve addressed highlighted issues (in which case we’ll give some general guidance at the time of application). 

Congratulations to all companies announced in this news. Great to see seven portfolio and community studios included in the cohort! bit.ly/432yPZ9 @huey_games @BellularGaming @BrightrockGames @KaizenGameWorks @GoodGateMedia @pluginmedia @SlugDisco twitter.com/BFI_Industry/s…

About 2 weeks ago from UK Games Fund's Twitter