Zero One Creative (01C), a London-based startup at the forefront of AI-powered creative technology, has successfully secured a €500,000 investment from EWOR, marking a significant milestone as the first recipient of EWOR’s newly increased Traction Fellowship funding. This capital injection aims to accelerate the development of AMARA, 01C’s AI-native creative platform designed to revolutionise immersive storytelling by unifying disparate tools and workflows within a single seamless interface.
Founded by a team that blends deep expertise across artificial intelligence, film, visual effects, and immersive media, Zero One Creative exemplifies a cross-disciplinary approach poised to address longstanding challenges within the creative industries. The founding trio—Ashkan Dabbagh, James Elkin, and Rupert Aspden—bring impressive credentials to the venture. Dabbagh, an AI specialist educated at Oxford, has held technical roles at Warner Bros. and Amazon Studios, alongside production management at DNEG, acclaimed for work on films such as Interstellar and Dune. Elkin’s unique background combines military discipline as a former Royal Air Force technician with extensive experience in visual effects for major broadcasters including Sky, BBC, and Netflix. Aspden’s career spans production and operations roles at media giants including the BBC, Disney, Amazon, and 20th Century Fox.
The core proposition behind AMARA is to resolve the fragmentation that hampers today’s creators—particularly in games, animation, and immersive media—who face slowdowns due to siloed platforms, varied content formats, and complex, incompatible workflows. AMARA integrates traditional creative tools with advanced generative AI within one platform, enabling creators to ideate, build, optimise, and deploy multi-format content rapidly while preserving creative momentum. The platform’s human-centric design is intended to protect the “creative flow,” a vital and often elusive state of productivity and inspiration, by eliminating the need to juggle multiple disjointed software solutions.
Prior to its public launch, AMARA was instrumental in producing more than ten viral marketing campaigns, securing widespread attention with over 40 million views. Clients include prominent brands such as McLaren, eBay, Twix, and Starcloud, with growth driven organically through word of mouth and repeat business. Zero One Creative has also garnered notable accolades, including finalist status in Oxford University’s OX1 Incubator—ranked among its top 1% out of 140 startups—and winning the 2024 Oxbridge AI Challenge, which drew over 200 competitors from Oxford and Cambridge Universities. The company’s alignment with industry heavyweights is further evidenced by support from Microsoft for Startups, Google for Startups, and inclusion in NVIDIA’s Inception Program.
EWOR, a Berlin-based venture fund and fellowship network, is known for supporting the world’s top 0.1% of founders, particularly those building high-impact, category-defining companies. Led by exited unicorn founders from ventures like SumUp and Adjust, EWOR combines funding with a rich mentorship ecosystem, operational guidance, and extensive community access. Their decision to raise the Traction Fellowship investment to €500,000—awarded to startups demonstrating early traction and significant growth potential—reflects increasing confidence in 01C’s trajectory and potential to reshape storytelling in the digital age.
Creative industries globally are hungry for innovation that embraces the increasing complexity and cross-media nature of modern content. AMARA’s approach, by embedding AI-native capabilities into a single unified creative platform, responds directly to this need, offering scalability and efficiency that can empower creators to shepherd ideas from conception to realisation without interruption. Given the founders’ blend of technical acumen and industry experience, combined with the robust backing of EWOR and major tech partners, Zero One Creative is well-positioned to influence the future of immersive media production and storytelling.
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Source: Noah Wire Services