What If a Virtual World Existed on Every Website?
SAN FRANCISCO --(BUSINESS WIRE)-- ROCKETON, Inc., a venture-funded startup located in South San Francisco,
has closed its Series B round of financing with a $5 million investment
from the D. E. Shaw group’s venture
capital unit. This funding brings total amount invested to $5.8 million.
The company is building out a new type of virtual world that doesn't
exist on a single website, but, instead, is spread across the entire
Internet.
"What would it be like if people could take a virtual world with them
wherever they go on the Internet?" says Steven Hoffman, CEO of ROCKETON.
"The answer we came up with is a parallel experience, where players
rocket through cyberspace with their avatar and interact with virtual
environments on almost every website they visit."
"What caught our attention about ROCKETON is the potential for a new,
real-time social interaction between people online," says Michael Banks,
a senior vice president of D. E. Shaw & Co., L.P. "We asked ourselves,
what if you took the next logical step beyond Facebook or Second Life?
How would that look? The result is a new way of experiencing the Web."
ROCKETON is focused on the convergence of personalization of online
identity, web-based community, and massively multiplayer online games.
"We're building games around social interaction," says Eric Hayashi, VP
of Business Development & Marketing at ROCKETON, "and weaving this into
the fabric of the Web."
ROCKETON has an experienced management team that has worked at
high-profile game publishers, including SEGA, Vivendi-Universal, Sony
(SNE), Atari (ATAR), and Electronic Arts (ERTS). The team has been
quietly building out the technology and infrastructure for a parallel
virtual world that spans the Web since May 2007. The product is
currently in closed alpha.
About ROCKETON
www.rocketon.com
About The D. E. Shaw Group
The D. E. Shaw group is a global investment and technology development
firm with more than 1,300 employees; approximately $35 billion in
aggregate investment capital as of January 1, 2008; and offices in North
America, Europe, and Asia. Since its organization in 1988, the firm has
earned an international reputation for financial innovation,
technological leadership, and an extraordinarily distinguished staff.
If you'd like more information, please contact us at press@rocketon.com.