UK game tech company JECO secures $1.3 million in pre-seed investment

UK tech company JECO has secured $1.3 million/£960,000 in growth funding, with the pre-seed investment led by the government-backed British Business Bank and investment collective The Games Angels.

JECO announced the funding in a press release on July 30, with Mark Barry, senior investment director at British Business Bank, saying the economic development bank is “delighted” with the co-investment, which “aligns with our programme goals to strengthen the UK’s regional economy and leverage investment potential into innovating entrepreneurs in key sectors.”

Founded by Antler Studios co-founder (and inaugural UK Video Games Council member) Emily Bailey and Four Door Lemon co-founder and current CEO/co-founder of Cooperative Innovations, Simon Barratt, JECO describes itself as an “industry first” B2B tech toolkit which allows developers “to increase performance whilst reducing production costs, timelines, and carbon consumption by adopting an automated suite of optimization tools for all software, on any device.”

“JECO was born out of the belief that if developers are given frictionless ways to improve and enhance their development processes, they can find quicker, cost-effective routes to market, and can also start to play an important role in addressing wider environmental issues that may impact our industry in the future,” said Bailey. “I am incredibly grateful to all our investors for supporting us in our mission; to support developers in making positive behavioural changes through the power of technology.”

In the press release, JECO revealed that a significant portion of the data will go towards marketing and strategy, with the majority of the funding dedicated to developing the company’s energy dashboard monitoring app, which aims to automatically track running costs, hardware specifications, and carbon data. The app is due to release in Q4 2025.

“Software development is fundamentally flawed,” said Nick Button-Brown, former chair of the BAFTA Games Committee and founder at The Games Angels, an industry veteran investment group. “It’s built fast and on tight budgets, where performance is an afterthought, and is costly and time-consuming to fix.

“I thought co-founders Emily and Simon were building an incredibly strong team around an idea that addresses this, and simply makes so much sense, so it was a fairly easy choice to invest. What they have already achieved is phenomenal, and I think JECO will have a great impact over the next few years.”