Tue 26th Sep 2017 - Escape room company Tick Tock Unlocked launches £1m crowdfunding campaign to open first London site Escape room company Tick Tock Unlocked launches £1m crowdfunding campaign to open first London site: Regional escape room multi-site company Tick Tock Unlocked has launched a £1m fund-raise on crowdfunding platform Crowdcube to launch its first site in London. The company, founded by Ali Khan and Samrien Hussain, is offering a 20% equity stake in return for the investment. Tick Tock Unlocked currently has company-operated venues in Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester along with a franchised site in Glasgow. Now it is raising funds to open its first site in London as it eyes a nationwide roll-out of owner-operated venues. The pitch states: “Tick Tock is an immersive entertainment company with a single, unifying goal – create amazing experiences for our guests. We are unique in our product mix, and are looking to launch our London venue including free-roaming virtual reality experiences, and licence our technology and content internationally. Our focus is on creating a high-growth, location-based entertainment company. By owning all stages from concept to carefully crafting games to operations, we believe we have built a distinct competitive position in the entertainment-leisure sector. Escape games have seen an incredible growth globally, and virtual reality is establishing itself as an amazing growth opportunity in the out-of-home entertainment market. More specifically, free-roaming, where the players can roam in the physical space as part of the experience with their virtual reality headsets, is incredibly immersive and is the future of immersive entertainment but not on its own. With our product mix, we believe we can exploit the synergies and build a platform for our licensees and guests across the world. A total of 75% of the spend will be on the London venue and product development. Possible exit options include a sale to an entertainment company such as Merlin Entertainments, share buyback, sale to a cinema chain or an initial public offering as Escape Hunt, with revenues of £1.1m, which is now listed on AIM.”