South Korean firm Nurien Software has secured $15 million of Series A funding, which it plans to use for the launch of its intriguing-sounding 3D social networking service platform later this year. The platform is actually based on videogame technology - Epic Games' Unreal 3 engine - but appears to be being used in this case for non-game content, with users creating avatars and 3D items within Nurien's world.
Worlds In Motion says there will also be links with Nurien’s existing social applications - virtual dancing game Mstar, fashion show app Runway (from which the image above is taken), and online trivia game QuizStar. The new platform is expected to launch in China and Korea at the end of this year, and then expand to the US in early 2009.
It’s interesting to see Chinese and Korean firms targeting Western markets from the get-go, rather than merely focusing on their own countries. A lot of the talk around virtual worlds in North America and Europe has tended to focus on homegrown startups, but it seems the next 12-18 months will see new competition from the East.
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