Saints Capital takes stake in Second Life owner Linden Lab
Secondary investment firm Saints Capital has acquired a stake in virtual world startup Linden Lab, the owner of Second Life.
Venturewire reported that Saints Capital acquired the stake from an existing investor, and that Linden Lab was not involved in the transaction. That means that one of Linden Labs’ current investors or employee stakeholders sold the shares to Saints. Linden Lab declined comment.
Linden Lab has raised more than $19 million from investors including Benchmark Capital, Catamount Ventures, Globespan Capital Partners and Omidyar Network. Secondaries firm Stratim Capital acquired a small equity stake in the company in 2009.
Second Life launched in 2003 and has about a million monthly users. The number may be small, but it’s an active community. Second Life expects transactions between users to top $500 million this year. The company has more than 340 employees.
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About the Author, Dean Takahashi
Dean is lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He covers video games, security, chips and a variety of other subjects. Dean previously worked at the San Jose Mercury News, the Wall Street Journal, the Red Herring, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register and the Dallas Times Herald. He is the author of two books, Opening the Xbox and the Xbox 360 Uncloaked. Follow him on Twitter at @deantak, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.
