Qwaq Secures $7M in Series B

Qwaq, a virtual worlds provider for enterprise solutions, has just secured $7 million in Series B funding co-led by Alloy Ventures and Storm Ventures with participation from previous investors. The only existing investor we know of is KPG Ventures, which we reported last month as having invested an undisclosed amount earlier in the year, though it was reportedly less than $1 million. The funds will go toward Qwaq's sales, marketing, product and engineering teams and initiatives. "Alloy and Storm are quality investors that have successfully worked together in the past and will contribute to our future growth," said Greg Nuyens, Qwaq's CEO. "These funds will help us meet staffing and investment requirements in critical areas so we are well equipped to continue to create and deliver innovative virtual technology for the enterprise."

Ammar Hanafi, general partner at Alloy Ventures, and Alex Mendez, founding general partner at Storm Ventures, will join Qwaq's board of directors.

"The intersection of software as a service and virtual spaces provides a huge market opportunity and the ability to deliver truly innovative collaboration capabilities to the enterprise," said Hanafi. "Qwaq is well positioned at the forefront of this intersection and its management team has a history of building successful ventures together.

Qwaq Forums, released in March, is a secure virtual workspace allowing distributed teams to collaborate in 2D or 3D and over voice or chat. In September, Intel announced that its collaborative environment, Miramar, would come to market as a hybrid with Qwaq Forums. Adding extra clout to the solution's presence is the fact that it's already in use at Intel for collaboration.

"Globalization of distributed workforces is driving market demand for virtual collaboration through immersive 3D technologies," said Mendez. "We believe that Qwaq's technology, approach and successes to date make it well suited to capitalize on these new market opportunities."