Microsoft and Creative England relaunch £500,000 Greenshoots incubator

The Greenshoots incubator is back, with more money for start-up studios and covering a far broader area.

A joint venture between Microsoft and Creative England, the programme is now open to all studios in England – outside of Greater London – and has been funded with £500,000. That’s double the amount of previous Greenshoots cohorts.

The goal is to help independent games studios develop and release new games, with funding, mentoring and guidance available to the selected developers. Greenshoots hopes to identify studios that show potential for growth, and by extension stimulate more businesses around the country.

For 2015, Greenshoots will be collaborating with the Xbox Team, enabling chosen studios to get their title into the ID@Xbox programme, and will help put its incubated devs in front of investors and publishers to secure more funding.

"The creativity and success of past games and the fantastic teams behind them is what makes this programme exciting,” said Creative England’s head of games and digital media Jaspal Sohal.

“Not only is Creative England uncovering hidden talent across the country but this is also an unmissable opportunity for games companies to work with Microsoft and benefit directly from their support and guidance.”

This is the third round for Greenshoots. The previous two have nurtures 17 studios, including Total Monkery, Mad Fellows and Pixel Toys, a Leamington-based studio that recently appeared at Apple’s press conference to show off the gaming capabilities of the iPhone 6S.

Studios interested in enrolling can apply here. The deadline for applications is Friday, October 30th. You can find out more about Greenshoots here.