Barney Wragg's Unit1 raises $20M to make avatar concerts portable

Why it matters

Unit1 is trying to turn avatar concerts from one-off venue projects into repeatable touring productions, widening the format beyond a few major music estates.

Barney Wragg, the former EMI digital chief who later ran Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group, has raised $20 million for Unit1 Studio, his attempt to turn avatar concerts from expensive, one-location spectacles into productions that can travel.

Balderton Capital led an oversubscribed equity round, with Saul Klein joining as a new investor. Existing backers Mercuri, Gilston Music and former U2 manager Paul McGuinness also participated. The financing includes a separate production component for concerts in development, according to Unit1's September 21st announcement.

The primary announcement specifies $20 million. Tech.eu reported the amount as £20 million, while The Guardian described the dollar financing as nearly £15 million. Unit1 has not separated the equity proceeds from the production financing, leaving the scale of Balderton's actual investment unclear. Unit1's valuation and total capital raised also remain unspecified.

Wragg founded the London operation in 2023 and brought it to market in 2025 with creative director Jonathan Butterell and technical director Pavle Mihajlovic. Butterell directed the stage and film versions of "Everybody's Talking About Jamie." Mihajlovic previously co-founded game studios Electric Saint and Flavourworks. The mix reflects what Unit1 is selling: part visual-effects pipeline, part theatrical production house and part financing operation.

Wragg has spent much of his career at the point where music rights meet new distribution technology. He held senior digital roles at Universal Music and EMI, where he was global head of digital during the recording industry's shift toward downloads and early streaming. He joined Really Useful Group in late 2011 to oversee copyrights, licensing, artist management and new revenue formats.

That history explains Unit1's underlying bet. Avatar concerts require technical work, but the bottleneck also includes permissions, artist relationships, estate management, venue economics and the financing of each production. Unit1 is building the digital performer while trying to package the surrounding commercial machinery.

Taking the show out of its custom venue

ABBA Voyage established that audiences will buy tickets to see digital versions of artists in a physical venue. Its purpose-built London arena also set a capital-intensive benchmark that few artists or rights holders can copy.

Unit1 says its production system can reduce that burden by moving a completed show between venues without rebuilding the underlying technical production. As evidence, Unit1 points to the relocation of its KT Tunstall showcase from a former Hammersmith site to a purpose-built studio at Tileyard London.

As The Guardian reported, Tunstall recorded a performance with motion-capture cameras, recreating an appearance from roughly two decades earlier on "Later... with Jools Holland." Unit1 used that material to build a photorealistic digital performer presented on LED screens alongside physical lighting, sound, props and live musicians. The audience watches a digital figure within a conventional venue rather than through a virtual-reality headset.

Unit1's portability claim is central to the investment case. If its system can move a production among several markets when venue runs end, the company could spread development costs across more tickets and reduce dependence on one location.

The available evidence establishes that Unit1 moved a showcase. It does not yet establish the cost of relocating a full commercial concert, the time required, or how those figures compare with another avatar production. Wragg's claim that Unit1 can develop shows "at a fraction of the cost" remains an assertion until Unit1 puts a ticketed production through multiple venues.

A music executive's technology bet

Wragg's initial market is dominated by artists who have stopped touring, whether through retirement, age or death. He told Music Week in January that this group represented the largest commercial opportunity, although active performers could also use digital productions to reach places excluded from a physical tour.

That makes rights holders and artist estates as important to Unit1 as its rendering technology. Unit1 plans to use part of the financing for research and development, intellectual-property access and licensing arrangements. Unit1's production model spans artist relations, avatar production, staging, venues, marketing, operations and financing.

Wragg has framed the format as "time travel tourism": fans pay to enter a recreation of a performance they missed or could never have attended. Unit1 also has to persuade established fans that the production protects the artist's identity rather than reducing it to reusable content.

Wragg told The Guardian that Unit1 generally works with families and estates on performances that are already well documented. That approach addresses one source of resistance around digital recreations of dead artists, though every proposed concert will still depend on the rights holder, source material and creative choices involved.

The $20 million gives Unit1 capital to move beyond a technical demonstration and secure the artists needed for commercial shows. Unit1 has not named the concerts in development or provided launch dates. Those deals will determine whether portability becomes a repeatable production model or remains an impressive feature of the KT Tunstall showcase.

Wragg described Unit1's purpose as "expanding the connection between fan and artist regardless of time or geography". Balderton is funding Unit1's proposed practical version of that thesis: make the digital performer once, then give the production somewhere else to go.