GamesIndustry.biz is set to host a dedicated games-funding panel at Game Republic’s Investment Summit later this month, with the session landing inside MCM London Comic Con at ExCeL London from October 23-25, 2026. The pairing puts one of the trade’s most-read outlets on stage at one of the only investor-facing events built directly into a consumer convention, and it arrives at a moment when independent studios across the UK are struggling to close funding rounds.
The announcement, confirmed through Game Republic’s own event listing and corroborated by trade outlet WN Hub’s conference tracker, ties together three threads that have each separately dominated gaming-business headlines in 2026: the drought in venture funding for game studios, the consolidation of industry events under convention organiser ReedPop, and the growing role of specialist trade press in shaping which developers get face time with capital. For a UK games sector that has shed thousands of jobs this year, the summit is being framed as a rare chance for founders to pitch directly to people who write checks.
What’s happening at MCM London Comic Con in October 2026
MCM London Comic Con returns to ExCeL London for three days, running Friday, October 23 through Sunday, October 25, 2026, according to the official MCM Comic Con event listing and ExCeL London’s own venue calendar. Public entry times vary by ticket tier: priority and weekend ticket holders can enter from 10:00 a.m. on Friday and 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, while general admission opens later each day. The convention has grown well beyond its roots as a pop-culture and comics show, and its site map now advertises what it calls three industry summits taking place across the weekend, a sign of how much business programming organiser ReedPop has folded into what was once a purely consumer-facing event.
That expansion matters because MCM London now effectively doubles as EGX, the long-running UK games expo that ReedPop also owns. Folding EGX’s industry-day programming into the MCM weekend means studios, publishers and investors who once had to choose between a trade show and a consumer show can now work both in one trip to East London. Game Republic’s own event page confirms it has partnered with MCM Comic Con on two separate occasions in 2026: an Indie Games Summit held in May, and the Investment Summit arriving this month alongside ReedPop’s broader EGX programming.
Game Republic’s Investment Summit: what it actually is
Game Republic is a UK games-industry network, rooted in Yorkshire and the north of England, that organizes events, talks and networking sessions connecting developers with publishers, platforms and investors. According to Game Republic’s own announcement, the organization has partnered with ReedPop to stage the Investment Summit inside the October MCM London Comic Con and EGX weekend at ExCeL. The stated purpose, per that announcement, is to connect game developers and publishers with financial resources at a time when funding routes for independent studios have narrowed sharply.
Game Republic has run funding-focused programming at ExCeL before. A separate recap published by Game Republic described a 2024 Games Industry Summit held the same Friday as EGX, curated in partnership with EGX’s own events team and featuring panels and talks attended by developers across Game Republic’s network. The October 2026 Investment Summit follows that same template, but trade coverage from WN Hub suggests this year’s edition carries a sharper focus on investment specifically, rather than general industry talks.
The GamesIndustry.biz panel: who’s confirmed
GamesIndustry.biz is set to present what has been billed as The Games Investment Panel at the summit, according to both WN Hub’s conference listing and Game Republic’s own event page. The panel is chaired by Lewis Packwood, features editor at GamesIndustry.biz, who moderates a lineup of panelists drawn from across the investment and publishing side of the business. Those confirmed panelists, per Game Republic’s announcement, are Cassia Curran of Curran Games Agency, Lirui Ding of Transcend Fund, Simon Byron of Yogscast Games, and Meg Clarke of Team17.
That mix of panelists is itself a signal of where capital for games is actually coming from in 2026. Curran Games Agency works on the talent and representation side, Transcend Fund sits on the dedicated games-investment side, Yogscast Games blends creator-economy money with traditional publishing, and Team17 is a publicly listed UK publisher known for backing smaller, often first-time studios. Having one panel span a talent agency, a specialist fund, a creator-led publisher and a traditional listed publisher reflects how fragmented funding sources for independent games have become, since no single category of investor is currently filling the gap left by the venture pullback of the past two years.
It’s worth noting that some of this same panel lineup and format previously appeared attached to Game Republic’s Indie Games Summit, and WN Hub’s own listing refers to the October session as taking place at the Indie Games Summit even while Game Republic’s own page frames the October event as the Investment Summit. Readers should treat the naming as still settling: the panelists, chair, venue and October MCM window are consistent across sources, even where the exact summit name used by different outlets has varied.
Why a trade publication is running the panel, not a VC firm
It’s unusual, in most industries, for a news outlet to chair an investor panel rather than simply cover one. But GamesIndustry.biz has built that role over more than two decades of covering game-studio funding, mergers and layoffs, giving its editorial staff a rolodex that rivals most boutique advisory firms. Lewis Packwood’s role as moderator fits a broader pattern: trade press in games has increasingly become the connective tissue between capital and studios, partly because traditional tech-focused venture firms pulled back from games investing as blockbuster exits got rarer after 2022.
This also explains why the panel is embedded inside a consumer convention rather than a closed-door investor conference. Studios attending MCM London as exhibitors or talk speakers can walk straight from a showfloor booth into a funding conversation without booking a separate trip to London or San Francisco. That logistical compression is precisely the value proposition Game Republic is selling to its member studios, many of which are small, cash-constrained teams that cannot easily justify multiple industry trips a year.
The funding backdrop: why this panel matters now
The Investment Summit lands during one of the roughest stretches for game-industry employment in years. Microsoft’s Xbox division has absorbed repeated rounds of cuts in 2026, with one wave alone eliminating 5,750 positions and fueling fears of further reductions, as covered in our report on Xbox’s layoffs hitting 5,750 jobs. Smaller studios have not been spared either: Supermassive Games cut 75 roles, a reduction detailed in our coverage of Supermassive’s job cuts and the wider union warning, while Ninja Theory’s staff reductions, reported in our piece on Ninja Theory’s layoffs across the Xbox portfolio, hit 268 positions.
Publisher relationships have grown just as unstable. Grasshopper Manufacture’s split from NetEase after producing a single title, which we covered in our article on Grasshopper Manufacture parting ways with NetEase, illustrates how quickly even well-funded publisher-developer arrangements can unwind when a single project underperforms. Against that backdrop, independent studios have fewer places to turn, which is exactly the gap Game Republic says its Investment Summit panel is designed to address.
Historical context: from trade show to funding marketplace
EGX has run as a UK consumer and trade games expo for well over a decade, but its investor-facing programming is a comparatively recent addition. Game Republic’s own recap of a prior Games Industry Summit held alongside EGX at ExCeL described a day of talks and panels curated with EGX’s events team, attended by developers from across Game Republic’s network as well as other visiting studios. That earlier event functioned more as a networking and talks day than a dedicated funding marketplace.
The shift toward an explicitly investment-branded summit tracks a broader change in how UK games policy bodies and regional networks have responded to the funding slowdown. Rather than waiting for venture capital to return to pre-2022 levels, regional bodies like Game Republic have instead built their own structured matchmaking events, leaning on media partners like GamesIndustry.biz to lend credibility and draw a cross-section of investor types who might not otherwise attend a single event together.
Competitive landscape: how this summit stacks up against other UK games events
The Investment Summit is not the only funding-adjacent gathering on the UK games calendar this October. Game Republic is also running its New Horizons event in Middlesbrough from October 14-16, 2026, at the Riverside Stadium, according to GamesIndustry.biz’s own events listing, with speakers including Housemarque and Bithell Games staff and an open session hosted by Nintendo for developers and publishers. That event is separate from the MCM London Investment Summit, both in date and in venue, and is oriented more toward craft and development talks than direct investor access.
The table below lays out how the two Game Republic-linked events compare on format and audience, based on currently published details.
| Event | Dates (2026) | Venue | Primary focus | Confirmed participants |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Game Republic Investment Summit (with ReedPop, at MCM London) | Oct 23-25 | ExCeL London | Developer-investor funding access | Lewis Packwood (chair), Cassia Curran, Lirui Ding, Simon Byron, Meg Clarke |
| Game Republic New Horizons | Oct 14-16 | Riverside Stadium, Middlesbrough | Development talks, craft sessions | Housemarque, Bithell Games, Nintendo open session |
| MCM London Comic Con (overall convention) | Oct 23-25 | ExCeL London | Consumer pop-culture, gaming, media | General exhibitors, talent guests |
Who’s on the panel, and what each brings to the funding conversation
The four confirmed panelists represent genuinely different slices of how money currently moves into UK game development. Breaking down each participant’s background helps explain why Game Republic assembled this particular group rather than, say, a panel of traditional venture investors alone.
| Name | Organization | Role at Investment Summit | Type of capital represented |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lewis Packwood | GamesIndustry.biz | Panel chair / moderator | Trade press, editorial |
| Cassia Curran | Curran Games Agency | Panelist | Talent representation and deal-making |
| Lirui Ding | Transcend Fund | Panelist | Dedicated games-sector investment fund |
| Simon Byron | Yogscast Games | Panelist | Creator-economy-linked publishing |
| Meg Clarke | Team17 | Panelist | Listed traditional games publisher |
Market impact: what this means for indie studios chasing funding
For the independent studios that make up most of Game Republic’s membership, the practical value of the panel is less about any single pitch meeting and more about compressed access. A studio that might otherwise need separate trips to meet a talent agency, a dedicated fund, a creator-led publisher and a listed publisher can instead find all four represented on one stage, on one day, inside a convention they were likely attending anyway. That matters disproportionately for cash-constrained teams, where every day of founder time spent traveling is a day not spent shipping a game.
There is also a signaling effect at play. When a publicly listed publisher like Team17 sits on a funding panel alongside a specialist fund and a creator-economy publisher, it tells the room that multiple categories of capital are still actively looking at UK games, even if the overall volume of available funding has shrunk. Industry contraction stories, like the layoffs at Xbox-owned studios and the Supermassive and Ninja Theory cuts referenced above, can create a perception that all capital has left the sector. A visible, cross-category funding panel pushes back against that narrative, whether or not it results in immediate deals.
How the summit fits into ReedPop’s broader events strategy
ReedPop’s decision to fold an investment-focused summit into a consumer convention schedule also reflects commercial logic for the organizer itself. MCM London Comic Con’s own site map now advertises three separate industry summits running across the October weekend, a sign that ReedPop sees business-to-business programming as a way to extend the commercial value of a show that already draws tens of thousands of consumer attendees. Rather than running EGX as a standalone trade show, as it has in past years, folding its industry-day content into the MCM weekend lets ReedPop monetize the same physical footprint and dates twice: once through consumer ticket sales, and again through exhibitor and industry-day participation fees.
This mirrors a pattern seen elsewhere in gaming’s broader business landscape in 2026, where market dynamics keep forcing events, publishers and platforms to consolidate overlapping functions. Our coverage of how major publishers are positioning remaining 2026 releases around seven major games still set to launch this year while dodging GTA 6 shows a similar consolidation instinct: rather than compete head-on for attention, companies increasingly schedule around, or merge into, the biggest gravitational events on the calendar.
Pricing pressure and the wider UK games economy
Funding access doesn’t exist in isolation from pricing and monetization trends that are reshaping studio revenue in 2026. Kingdom Come: Deliverance creator Warhorse Studios has publicly said it hopes GTA 6’s rumored $80 price tag could reset pricing expectations industry-wide, a dynamic we examined in our report on how Warhorse is hoping GTA 6 sets a new price ceiling. Higher per-unit pricing for AAA titles could, in theory, ease some of the revenue pressure that has driven the current wave of studio layoffs, which would in turn make investors more comfortable writing checks for ambitious mid-size projects rather than only safe, low-budget bets.
At the same time, regulators have been scrutinizing how games monetize players more directly. The European Union’s probe into nine gaming companies over virtual currency pricing practices, covered in our article on the EU’s investigation into virtual currency pricing across nine studios, adds another layer of uncertainty that investors evaluating UK studios with live-service or free-to-play components will likely want addressed before committing capital. China’s game-approval pipeline, which cleared 209 titles in September alone according to our coverage of China’s approval of 209 games in a single month, is a reminder that funding decisions increasingly have to account for how a title will clear regulatory hurdles well beyond the UK and EU.
What outlets are and aren’t confirming
It’s worth being precise about sourcing here, since coverage of the summit has come from a narrower set of outlets than some aggregator roundups suggest. WN Hub’s conference listing and Game Republic’s own event pages are the two primary sources confirming the panel’s chair, panelists, venue and October dates. GamesIndustry.biz’s events page lists the outlet’s broader 2026 calendar, including its separate New Horizons appearance in Middlesbrough. Beyond those three sources, no additional outlet has published panel-specific details, attendance figures or investment totals tied to the October 23-25 Investment Summit as of this writing, and readers should treat any attendance or dollar-value figures circulating elsewhere with caution until Game Republic or GamesIndustry.biz publish them directly.
Predictions: where this heads next
- Expect Game Republic and ReedPop to expand the Investment Summit format to additional MCM/EGX dates in 2027, following the same two-event-a-year pattern (Indie Games Summit in spring, Investment Summit in autumn) set in 2026.
- Expect GamesIndustry.biz to publish a written recap and possibly a video or podcast segment from the panel within days of the October 23-25 weekend, consistent with how the outlet has covered its own branded panels in the past.
- Expect more UK regional games networks to copy the format of pairing a trade-press-moderated funding panel with a consumer convention, since the logistical savings for cash-constrained studios are significant.
- Expect continued volatility in UK studio headcounts through the rest of 2026, meaning funding panels like this one will carry outsized attention even if the deals discussed remain modest in size.
- Expect scrutiny of how GTA 6’s eventual pricing and launch performance affects investor appetite for mid-budget UK titles, given how directly that outcome was referenced by UK developers earlier this year.
What to watch for during the summit weekend
Attendees and remote followers alike should watch for three things once the panel takes place. First, whether Game Republic or GamesIndustry.biz release any concrete numbers, such as attendee counts or deal announcements, since none have been published as of this writing. Second, whether the naming inconsistency between Indie Games Summit and Investment Summit gets formally resolved in post-event coverage, which would clarify whether these are two distinct recurring events or one event that has been rebranded. Third, whether any of the four confirmed panelists, Curran, Ding, Byron or Clarke, make public statements afterward about specific studios they plan to follow up with, which would be the clearest signal of whether the panel translated into real funding activity rather than just visibility.
Frequently Asked Questions
When does MCM London Comic Con take place in October 2026?
MCM London Comic Con runs Friday, October 23 through Sunday, October 25, 2026, at ExCeL London, according to the official MCM Comic Con event listing.
What is the Game Republic Investment Summit?
It is a funding-focused event organized by Game Republic in partnership with convention organizer ReedPop, designed to connect game developers and publishers with investors, taking place during the MCM London Comic Con weekend at ExCeL London.
Who is on the GamesIndustry.biz panel at the summit?
The panel, chaired by GamesIndustry.biz features editor Lewis Packwood, includes Cassia Curran of Curran Games Agency, Lirui Ding of Transcend Fund, Simon Byron of Yogscast Games, and Meg Clarke of Team17, according to Game Republic’s event announcement.
Is this the same event as Game Republic’s New Horizons conference?
No. New Horizons takes place October 14-16, 2026, at the Riverside Stadium in Middlesbrough and focuses on development talks, while the Investment Summit takes place October 23-25 at ExCeL London during MCM Comic Con and focuses specifically on funding access.
Is the Investment Summit open to the public?
Published details confirm the summit takes place during the publicly ticketed MCM London Comic Con weekend, though specific entry requirements for the investment programming itself have not been published by Game Republic as of this writing.
Why is a games funding panel happening at a pop-culture convention?
MCM London Comic Con now hosts what its own site describes as three industry summits across its October weekend, reflecting organizer ReedPop’s strategy of folding EGX’s trade and business programming into the consumer convention schedule rather than running it as a standalone show.
Has any investment total or attendance figure been announced?
No. As of this writing, neither Game Republic nor GamesIndustry.biz has published a confirmed attendance number or investment total tied to the October Investment Summit.
Where can I find more details about the panel and summit?
Game Republic’s own event page and WN Hub’s conference listing currently carry the most detailed, directly sourced information on the panel lineup, venue and dates.