French Virtual World Company Chapatiz Gets $530k Investment

Chapatiz SA, a French company making virtual worlds for pre-teens, has received its first burst of VC funding. François Véron (founder of Newfund), Dusan Stojanovic (Business Angel), Jean Bégo (Business Angel) and several IT experts contributed €350,000 to become shareholders. The company was founded in 2005 by François Barbut, Stéphan Twarog and Arno Guensherian and now boasts almost 780,000 users with 12,638 active in the last day on the French browser-based world. The English version has 11,144 users with 992 active in the last day. The world is free and has Google ads running on the side. Users can also use Chips, the virtual currency, for premium virtual goods.