Formerly known as ElectricNoir, Scriptic is a London-based studio specializing in phone-first interactive shows and innovative applications of generative AI in entertainment. The studio has successfully raised $5.7 million in a recent funding round. BITKRAFT Ventures led the investment, with participation from Tower 26 and the Amazon Alexa Fund and additional support from existing investors. This funding brings Scriptic’s total seed round to $8.2 million, following a previous investment of $2.5 million.
Nihal Tharoor, CEO and co-founder of Scriptic, said:
“We created Scriptic with the aim of entertaining the world with stories that reflect our ever-changing digital lives. By bringing together a hugely talented creative team, our proprietary tech offering, and a host of cutting-edge generative AI technologies, we’ve been able to create immersive stories that really resonate with audiences, purpose-built for the most interactive medium there is – our phones. Today’s funding, from an incredible cast of new and returning investors, will empower us to pursue our vision of becoming the ‘Roblox of narrative’. We’re excited about building out our pipeline of interactive shows across new and existing IPs, opening up our community for user-generated content, and taking the next step in our ambitious company journey.”
Scriptic is among the early pioneers of generative AI tools for content production. They initially employed ChatGPT and DALL-E in 2021 to assist with their content creation process. For instance, their horror anthology series, “Dark Mode,” utilized AI for content production and as a creative tool for visual art, voice acting, and text generation. Other shows like “You Be The Judge!” and the recently-released zombie series “Viral” have featured generative AI tools like ElevenLabs, ChatGPT, Midjourney, and Runway Gen-2.
The studio develops interactive shows that cater to mainstream audiences, bridging the gap between films and games. Leveraging generative AI in its content production makes it efficient, scalable, and easily accessible to consumers.
The success of Scriptic’s approach is evident in the popularity of their shows. Netflix, for instance, added its BAFTA-nominated interactive crime drama, “Scriptic: Crime Stories,” to its offerings in 2022, and it has since become one of the most sought-after titles in the gaming category. Furthermore, Scriptic’s proprietary app has garnered over 1.5 million organic installs, demonstrating widespread interest and engagement with its unique content.
Scriptic plans to activate its user-generated content (UGC) strategy by empowering external writers with AI-enabled creator tools. Via a cloud-based creator suite, these writers will have access to generative language models, diffusion models, and audio synthesis models, enabling them to create high-quality interactive experiences efficiently.
