Wake The Tiger secures £350k City Funds investment to propel growth

By Nicky Godding

20 February 2024

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Wake the Tiger

Bristol-based immersive visitor attraction Wake The Tiger has secured investment of £350,000 through local impact investors BBRC (Bristol & Bath Regional Capital) to support its ambitious growth in the city.

Last year, the ‘Amazement Park’, which was founded in 2021 by the visionary team behind Boomtown Festival, saw more than 250,000 visitors through its doors.

Wake The Tiger has just finished its new OUTERverse, the second stage of its development of the St. Phillip’s site in Bristol, which has doubled the size of the visitor experience and is now open to the public. The £350k investment from the City Funds impact investment fund, managed by BBRC, will complement a total fundraising effort of £2 million, combining £1 million of secured debt, partly from the Creative Growth Fund, and £1 million in new equity.

The impact of this investment extends beyond the growth in visitor numbers, as the organisation wants to develop an education and training pathway that empowers underrepresented communities to access the creative sector. Its engagement strategy includes community tickets, school visits, educational partnerships and work experience placements, apprenticeships and an employment policy targeting underrepresented groups.

Graham MacVoy, managing director at Wake The Tiger, said: “Since we launched in Bristol nearly three years ago, we’ve had such a warm welcome and great response from our visitors.

“We are excited to be able to deliver our ambitious growth plans and make sure that, through this growth, we are reaching everyone across the city and increasing access to and opportunities in the creative sector. We are delighted to have secured this investment from City Funds and can’t wait to reveal our newly expanded site and programme in the next few weeks.”

Jari Moate, investment director, Bristol & Bath Regional Capital, says: “Wake The Tiger plays an exciting role in raising awareness of how together we can see and shape a better world, reversing some of our worst global fears, in this case using a high quality, fun, engaging work of Bristol-made art.

“For the city’s creative industries, especially those who operate in it and those considering a career in it, this is a must-visit destination. We are delighted to be on the journey with them.”

City Funds is a £10m, ten-year, place-based impact fund launched in 2019, managed by BBRC. The fund invests in social enterprises, enterprising charities and impact-driven businesses in the Bristol region who are aiming to solve some of the biggest problems in the city. To date, BBRC has deployed almost £9m of the total fund.

By Nicky Godding

Nicky Godding is editor of The Business Magazine. Before her journalism career, she worked mainly in public relations moving into writing when she was invited to launch Retail Watch, a publication covering retail and real estate across Europe.

After some years of constant travelling, she tucked away her passport and concentrated on business writing, co-founding a successful regional business magazine. She has interviewed some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs who have built multi-million-pound businesses and reported on many science and technology firsts.

She reports on the region’s thriving business economy from start-ups, family businesses and multi-million-pound corporations, to the professionals that support their growth and the institutions that educate the next generation of business leaders.