UK digital investment house Ariadne Capital has funded two UK-based virtual-world companies, NearGlobal and RealLife, with undisclosed amounts. The company, which backed Spinvox early in its life, is now supporting NearGlobal which makes 3D representations of world cities, which are used as “portals” for shopping, education and social networking — Near London is due for launch before Christmas this year. The second is social networking-based MMO game RealLife, which is launching in beta on Facebook in the next few days ahead of a full launch in July. It’s the fifth funding round for Ariadne (as an investor or adviser) in the last six months.
The deal confirms CEO and Dragons’ Den resident Julie Meyer’s optimism in an interview with me in March. She said the recession wouldn’t stop the company from investing in the right companies. Meyer said she had been following virtual worlds but didn’t see where the ROI would come from, but said virtual worlds do work “where the user experience has a purpose, such as shopping or learning a trade, and is driven by a robust business model.” So NearGlobal’s virtual cities will have an e-commerce element while Real Life offers school and university leavers the chance to virtually experiment with careers and meet recruiters
Whether these new virtual worlds will gain traction remains to be seen, but there’s no doubt that MMO games and online worlds are big money — last week’s <a href="http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-virtual-world-erepublik-in-2-million-first-round-funding/" title="

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