Virtual worlds can be pretty dull when nothing you see there is recognisable as anything remotely real-world, which is perhaps why Twinity has such confident investors. The virtual world which re-creates the world’s cities for real-looking avatars to wander around, has closed another round of financing from existing investors to the tune of 4.5m Euros ($6.26 million).
Twinity’s owner Metaversum, which has taken a totally different tack to the likes of Second Life, won the backing from existing investors Grazia Equity and Balderton Capital, which joined BFB BeteiligungsFonds Brandenburg from InvestitionsBank des Landes Brandenburg, which is managed by BC Brandenburg Capital and KfW. As you can tell the startup is based in Germany. The funding will be used for development and expanding internationally.
Back in April last year Balderton, best known for investing in and exiting from Bebo and MySQL (the former to the tune of $140 million) joined investors in Metaversum.
In Twinity, members use real profiles and realistic-looking avatars. A virtual Berlin is in public beta right now, but a virtual Singapore is set to follow this summer, and London is under construction (much like the real London if you are familiar with its roads).