Thursday, October 23, 2008

Charles River Ventures and Netscape’s Andreessen back online world creator

By Mass High Tech Staff

Charles River Ventures and Crescendo Ventures have joined new investors and Netscape vets Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz in a $6.7 million funding round for Metaplace Inc., a San Diego-based maker of a platform for the creation of virtual online worlds. The new round brings the company’s total funding to $9.4 million, officials said.

Metaplace was founded as Areae Inc. by massively multiplayer gaming industry veterans Raph Koster, the lead designer of Ultima Online and creative director for Star Wars Galaxies, and John Donham, former vice president of development at Sony Online Entertainment, the publisher of Star Wars Galaxies and EverQuest.

Andreessen founded Netscape Communications Corp. He and Horowitz, a former Netscape vice president, co-founded Loudcloud Inc., which changed its name to Opsware Inc. and was sold to Hewlett-Packard Co. for $1.6 billion.

Earlier this month, CRV joined Helion Venture Partners in raising $11 million in a Series A round of funding for Webaroo, a mobile software and service developer in India. And last month, CRV and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers of Calif. backed RPX Corp., a new patent acquisition services company based in San Francisco, for an undisclosed amount.