When you encounter a fictional world you love – from a book, movie, show, or even just a vague idea – you can’t help imagining… what if you were there? Who would you be, who would you meet, what would you explore? How might you and your friends build on the original to push the boundaries and take it in new directions? What would that world become through your choices?

That’s what we’re building here at Hidden Door – technology that will transform how we interact with our favorite worlds, where anyone can be the hero of their own stories. Our first product is an online story-driven roleplaying game, where groups of friends can conjure characters and improvise adventures, together with authors and other creators.

Behind the scenes, we’re developing a “narrative AI” that enables our system to create and improvise along with groups of players in ways that feel magical, while ensuring rigorous content and safety standards. This all requires a bunch of fun work in machine learning (including NLP and deep learning approaches), search, and scaling systems that structure and generate worlds based on models of millions of stories.

And today, to further our mission and grow the team, we’re thrilled to announce we’ve raised $7m in seed capital, led by our friends at Makers Fund, with participation from Northzone and Betaworks.

We're hiring a few more stellar team members – check out our open positions! And if you love inclusive stories, fan fiction, roleplaying games, and narrative AI, come join our Discord community. Let's invent this future together. 🚀

Hilary & Matt
Hidden Door Co-Founders