London- and Chengdu-based entertainment technology startup Anorak has raised $5 million in a pre-seed funding round. The round was co-led by Play Ventures and Backed VC, with participation from Supercell and MTG.
Anorak aims to make different interests and hobbies more interactive through AI-powered entertainment. The company is developing technology that turns generative videos into playable experiences, allowing users to interact with videos in real time instead of simply watching them.
The company is led by CEO Shaun Rutland, who co-founded Hutch, the mobile gaming studio behind Top Drives and F1 Clash. Hutch was acquired by MTG in 2020. Anorak’s Chief Creative Officer Jonathan Alpine was also one of Hutch’s early employees and previously served as its Chief Creative Officer. Co-founder Tak Fung leads the company’s AI research team in Chengdu, China.
Anorak started as a research project focused on generative video. It now has a team of 20 people working across London and Chengdu. The company is building its own AI technology to make video generation faster, cheaper and easier to control. Its goal is to create games and entertainment experiences where content is generated and changes instantly based on what users do.
Unlike traditional gaming companies that focus on developing games for large audiences, Anorak wants to create interactive experiences for smaller communities with specific interests. These could include fishing enthusiasts, sneaker collectors, padel players, birdwatchers and K-pop fans.
The company believes generative AI can make it cheaper and easier to develop entertainment for these communities. This could open the door to games and experiences that traditional game studios may not consider commercially viable.
Anorak also wants people within these communities to create their own playable content. Instead of relying on large publishers to decide what audiences might enjoy, users will be able to build experiences around their own interests, humour and culture.
The company believes that people who understand a community best should have a say in the content created for it. It plans to give creators the tools to turn their ideas into interactive entertainment.
Anorak is currently sharing new playable experiments on its blog every week. It also plans to launch a creator platform that will allow anyone to develop their own interactive experiences.
According to Shaun Rutland, CEO and co-founder, Anorak: “Every time making got cheaper – in music, film and games – value moved to whoever had the taste to filter the flood. Generative is the biggest of those shifts yet, because almost anyone can now create. Anorak is about giving every community that power: real people making playable things for the people they actually care about.”
“What makes the vision especially compelling is the opportunity not only to build for passionate communities, but to empower those communities to create entertainment around their own interests. Shaun, Jonathan and Tak combine a proven track record in entertainment with deep AI expertise, exactly the kind of team we want to back at the beginning of a new technology cycle.” Alex Brunicki, Founding Partner, Backed VC.
The funding will help Anorak grow its teams in London and Chengdu, launch its first playable experiences and prepare to introduce its creator platform in early 2027.
