London-based startup Carter has secured £1.7m in pre-seed capital to bring conversational artificial intelligence (AI) to background video game characters.
Carter is targeting developers, who can use the startup’s API to build non-playable characters (NPCs) for their games. The company claims its AI can generate more realistic interactions between the human player and virtual characters.
In a statement, Carter’s founder, Danial Ali, said: “We’ve all seen these incredibly meaningful human-to-machine relationships on screens growing up – ‘JARVIS and Tony Stark’, ‘C3PO and Luke Skywalker’ and ‘Samantha and Theodore’ to name a few.”
Ali added: “Everybody on earth should have access to the unconditional love and friendship that human-to-machine companionship can provide – putting the right tools in the hands of engineers is essential to achieve this.”
Ali and Huw Prosser founded Carter in April. Prosser has existing experience in the AI field, previously founding the business automation software company Blooware.
Carter’s pre-seed was led by Play Ventures, with further participation from Connect Ventures, GFR Fund, Chris Lee, Affan Butt, Jas Purewal, Rupert Loman and Steve Chard.
Carter will use the pre-seed money to develop its AI technology for gaming as well as for AR and VR.
Last month UK game studio Landmark raised £4m in seed funding for its debut title.