Turbine hits $6.6m in $50m funding drive
According to news site Gamasutra, US MMO giant Turbine have secured $6.6m worth of investment in a drive where they aim to get $50m in venture capital. Turbine are synonymous with the paid-going-free-to-play title Dungeons and Dragons Online as well as the ever popular Lord of the Rings Online. They are also an independent company, which is where the investment side of things comes in, as in order to run the games they need the financial backing of other companies to survive. Given they are not a giant company like Blizzard Entertainment, it's an interesting glimpse into how the MMO industry can work.
The info comes by way of an eleven page Form D (which you can read here) filed to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on August 10th. The document outlines info on the company, its director, their investors who include Highland Capital Partners, Tudor Ventures, Columbia Capital, and Granite Global Ventures and the amount of money involved. While the document is quite dry and filled with boring facts, it's good to know big businesses are acknowledging the roles MMOs have and how this is affected by their increasing mainstream popularity.
