Media Cymru announces Seed Fund (UK)

The Media Cymru Seed Fund enables Wales-based individuals and companies to research and develop innovation-driven products, services, and experiences within the media sector.

They are looking for ideas that have long-term potential for you or your business beyond the life of the project with Media Cymru. By the end of the project, you will have the foundations of a business plan, a financial forecast and a pitch deck that will enable you to pitch for funding to investors.

Project Scope

• Your project can focus on one or more of the following:
  • New media formats and the development of innovative content
  • Advanced media production, including the convergence of virtual production and traditional production
  • New and inclusive media business models and production processes
  • Net zero and the decarbonisation of the screen sector (projects that respond to the findings of the Screen New Deal Transformation Plan for Wales are particularly welcome)
  • Immersive storytelling through Extended Reality (XR) technologies, including Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR)
  • Video game content and production, including convergence with other media
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other technologies as tools for media production
  • Placemaking, including cultural and media tourism
  • Bilingual and multilingual production
  • News and public information
  • Music, voice and audio production, including performance and distribution.
• The Seed Fund is not suitable for:
  • Generic content development (for example, the development of short films, feature films or television pilots that conform to standard genres and storytelling practices)
  • General business development, or
  • One-off art commissions

Funding Information

• Media Cymru will provide up to £10,000 seed funding towards a three to five month R&D project.

Eligible Activities

• Research and Development (R&D) activities are defined as creative and systematic work undertaken to address challenges and to create new or improved products, services, processes or experiences.
• In a media context, this could mean exploring, experimenting with or testing new technology such as extended reality, artificial intelligence or virtual production. It could also mean exploring radical, fairer and more planet-friendly ways of working. It could involve testing new methods of producing, distributing and experiencing content, or new ways of reaching audiences and being more sensitive to their needs and demands.
• The kind of R&D projects they are looking for are:
  • Novel: they will be based on original concepts and hypotheses, not obvious ones.
  • Creative: they will take experimental approaches and generate new findings.
  • Uncertain: they will begin with a degree of uncertainty about the final outcomes.
  • Systematic: they will be based on a planned and budgeted approach.
  • Transferable: they will generate results that can be reproduced to gain wider benefits.

Eligibility Criteria

• They welcome applications from different sizes and types of organisations including micro-businesses, sole traders and freelancers.
  • Your company or practice is based in Wales.
  • You have a clearly articulated R&D idea.
  • You work in the Welsh media industry, or your idea directly benefits the Welsh media industry.
  • You can dedicate time and effort to complete an R&D project between January and June 2025.
  • They will only accept and fund one application per/company/organisation as a project lead.

For more information, visit Media Cymru.