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VCs sweet on kids' virtual worlds
Venture capitalists have sweetened on 3D playgrounds for kids online since Disney bought the virtual world Club Penguin for $350 million earlier this year.
Just ask Jim Bower, CEO of Numedeon, which runs an 8-year-old virtual world for the 8-to-14-year-old set called Whyville.net. Here at the Virtual World conference, Bower, who's also a professor of computational neuroscience at Caltech, said his life has changed a bit since that acquisition.
"We certainly get a lot of calls from VCs now," Bower said, adding that he has turned down at least one buyout offer from an investor.
It's no wonder VCs are salivating. Recent research points to vast expected growth in the market. Within four years, more than half of kids online--age 3 to 17--are expected to belong to a virtual world, doubling the membership in 2007, according to a study from eMarketer.
more ...
Just ask Jim Bower, CEO of Numedeon, which runs an 8-year-old virtual world for the 8-to-14-year-old set called Whyville.net. Here at the Virtual World conference, Bower, who's also a professor of computational neuroscience at Caltech, said his life has changed a bit since that acquisition.
"We certainly get a lot of calls from VCs now," Bower said, adding that he has turned down at least one buyout offer from an investor.
It's no wonder VCs are salivating. Recent research points to vast expected growth in the market. Within four years, more than half of kids online--age 3 to 17--are expected to belong to a virtual world, doubling the membership in 2007, according to a study from eMarketer.
more ...
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