Games, Mixed Reality, and Sports Tech raise over $10 billion in 2024 as immersive tech revolutionises industries

Global venture capital investment in Games, Mixed Reality, and Sports Tech reached $10.6 billion in 2024, defying broader funding declines.

As immersive technologies like spatial computing and AI move beyond entertainment, they are reshaping industries such as healthcare, automotive and skills training.

This sets the stage for an exciting 2025, as the benefits of these new technologies begin to be realised.

• Games: Global funding jumped from $3.1bn in 2023 to $4.3bn driven by enduring popularity and emerging technologies
• Spatial Computing: Raised $4.5bn, with significant growth in AR and VR applications beyond gaming.
• Sports Tech: Attracted $1.8bn, down from $2.5bn, demonstrating challenges but showing potential with later-stage rounds towards the end of the year

“We’re on the cusp of a new computing paradigm,” said Luke Alvarez, Managing Partner at Hiro Capital. “The Fifth Era of Computing will fundamentally change how we interact, create, and experience reality. Our role is to support the pioneers building this future but the real opportunity lies in the combined potential of all these sub-sectors, as we find new ways to integrate technology into our lives.”

Continued interest in games tech

According to Dealroom data, games funding across the US and Europe reached $3.5bn, nearly doubling from $1.8bn in 2023, whilst globally it rose from $3.1bn to $4.3bn. This is driven by the enduring popularity of established AAA live service games as entertainment and disruptive new indie launches in 2024 such as Palworld, Helldivers II and HIRO’s portfolio company KEEN Games’ Enshrouded. The US continued to dominate games investment, contributing $2.9bn to the total – up from $1bn in 2023. Late-stage deals like Epic’s $1.5bn raise was more than the total games funding raised in the US in 2023 ($1.1bn).

In the UK, investment in 2024 was down 15% year-on-year to $313m but significant deals, such as Edinburgh’s Build a Rocket Boy’s $110m Series D, demonstrated continued activity in the sector.

Europe has fewer gaming unicorns (31) than the US (34), including companies such as King, Tripledot Studios, Rovio, Sorare and Zynga. However, the fact this is so close demonstrates the strength of Europe’s gaming industry as overall the US has more than 3x the number of unicorns than Europe. Yet, Europe still lags behind the US when it comes to enterprise value: the European and UK gaming sectors are worth $197.4 billion and employ 271,000 employees, compared to $3.8 trillion for the US and over 330,000 employees.

Immersive tech transforming sectors

Demand for immersive environments, fuelled by the convergence of AR and AI, as well as breakthroughs in hardware, saw British spatial computing firms (AR, VR, and 3D technologies) raise $2.2bn in 2024 – a 141% increase year-on-year. This helped drive European investment higher by a quarter to $2.7bn. During 2024 these technologies moved further beyond the confines of games to applications across automotive, healthcare and industrial training, among other sectors, such as VR medical training startup, Oxford Medical Simulation’s $12.6m Series A.

Overall, spatial computing funding was down 20% to $4.5bn, but the US again dominated deals, raising $3.1bn.

Emerging UK Sports Tech Stars

The sports tech sector faced a challenging investment year in 2024, with global funding down 28%. US sports tech funding plummeted by 37%, while Europe’s funding dropped by 19%, though this did include later stage rounds such as EGYM’s $200M Series G.

UK funding fell by one-third, from $333m to $231m. Despite this, it is still a valuable sector worth $19.4 billion to the UK economy and employing 70,000 people. There are some extraordinary UK sports tech stars, including future unicorns such as UK (and Austria) -based AI Ski leader CARV SKI, London-founded VR Fitness star FIT XR, and Edinburgh AI football disruptor Playerdata. All of these are UK-founded businesses now accelerating into the USA and EU.

Enabling the Fifth Era of Computing

Hiro Capital – the VC fund founded by Luke Alvarez, Sir Ian Livingstone and Cherry Freeman that backed Zwift, CARV and FitXR – defines the Fifth Era of Computing as the transition of computing from 2D screens to immersive 3D environments, wearables and spatial technologies, where physical and digital worlds converge at pace until the two realms are fully merged.

This trend is already reshaping industries and consumer behaviour while technological advancements are driving rapid innovation, such as the integration of games technologies with mixed reality; the application of computing to the human body in sports; and the use of AI to personalise these experiences with smart assistants who make you a fitter and stronger human.

Orla Browne, Head of Insights at Dealroom said: “Despite a challenging year for investment across the board, the games, mixed reality and sports tech sector have largely defied this trend, demonstrating not only their enduring appeal, but also their growing influence on industries far beyond entertainment. With games leading in investment, and mixed reality making strides into sectors like healthcare and automotive, these areas are the definition of how technology can rewrite the rules of engagement, interaction and productivity.”