Little World Gifts to bring virtual gifts to the iPhone just in time for Christmas

Little-World-Gifts[UK] Liverpool-based Little World Gifts wants to re-define virtual gifts. Only the company doesn’t use that word, instead preferring the term ‘digital gifts’ — these aren’t the typical tiny 2D icons that are gifted on sites like Facebook, they’re 3D, touch-friendly and yes, you’ve guessed it, they run on the iPhone.

Gift shelvesLittle World Gifts will launch in December with its Little World Gifts Christmas Store, a free iPhone (and iPod touch) app that lets you browse the store from which you can purchase those 3D digital gifts. It’s a great example of the kind of offering that wouldn’t have been possible before Apple introduced ‘in-app’ purchasing, although in the case of virtual gifts, this may or may not be a good thing. The screen shot we’ve been sent also suggests that each gift will be priced at £1.19, which seems to be a bit on the high side.

The company isn’t just targeting consumers, however. Little World Gifts told us that they are busy developing a B2B proposition and working with “some pretty high profile brands” to bring branded digital gifts to the iPhone. This makes a lot more sense and could see the iPhone virtual gift market extend to a much larger customer-base depending on the brand. I can also see many of those gifts being given away for free as a marketing vehicle rather than to generate revenue directly.

The six-person startup received seed funding from Northwest Vision and Media’s Regional Attractive Fund, and are currently in the process of securing a Series A round before they roll out the full Little World Gifts offering next year.

Little World Gifts – Demo from Katie Lips on Vimeo.