Unit1 raises $20m to stage concerts with hyper-realistic digital avatars

Unit1 secured the funding from a group of investors that includes Balderton Capital, through its partner Daniel Waterhouse, who made early investments in Spotify. Existing investors also joined the round, including the venture capital firm Mercuri and Paul McGuinness, the Irish music executive who managed U2 from the late 1970s until 2013. Balderton has previously backed music rights firm Kobalt and fintech Revolut.

The company hopes to stage concerts led by avatars of living artists who are no longer touring, and to recreate existing performances by dead musicians. For deceased artists, Unit1 plans to develop the avatars by combining archive footage with hired actors and musicians who look or play like the departed star, before blending the footage together.

Unit1 has tested the technology with the Scottish singer-songwriter and musician KT Tunstall, who worked with Wragg during a stint at the music company EMI. In the pilot, Tunstall was filmed in a London studio by motion capture cameras as she recreated a two-decade-old performance on Later… with Jools Holland, using the avatar to update her features to the way she looks now.

The music industry has long explored digital avatars for major stars. In 2012, a hologram projection of the late rapper Tupac Shakur appeared alongside Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre at the Coachella festival. The concept reached mainstream success with Abba Voyage, a lucrative 2022 virtual concert featuring avatars of the Swedish pop group, which runs in a purpose-built venue in east London.

Unit1 hopes to offer a cut-price version of the Abba Voyage experience by giving artists, venues, rights holders and promoters a route to digital shows without needing a dedicated space. The setup also means a show could in theory tour in several countries simultaneously. The business will invest the fresh funds into research and development, as well as securing intellectual property and licensing deals with artists and their estates.

The startup aims to stage shows with real musicians playing live instruments on stage alongside digital performers. The audience will view a high-definition LED screen, combined with extra lights, sound and props, to create the illusion that they are watching a fully human performance.

“For the audience member in the room it is seamless between the digital and the physical room, immersing them,” Wragg told the Guardian. “It’s a teleportation of an audience member to a time and place.”

Some fans have expressed unease about dead musicians being digitally resurrected. Earlier this year, a plan to create a lifesize AI-powered avatar of the late Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne was criticised as disrespectful and in poor taste by some fans.

Wragg said that in most cases the startup was dealing with family members of estates to create something well documented and understood, such as extremely well-known concerts or live recordings. “We are mindful that you do not want to be distasteful,” he said. He was tight-lipped on which classic concerts Unit1 could recreate. He has previously said he wished he could have seen various well-known performances, including Queen at Live Aid, the Beatles at the Cavern Club and Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock.