Helsinki, February 25th 2009 - Michael “Monty” Widenius, the creator and founder of MySQL, has invested in Ironstar Helsinki, a Finnish company behind the rapidly growing social gaming world MoiPal. The MoiPal world, offers a unique gaming oriented social network, which is open to allow other websites and games to interact with it.

MoiPal is a rapidly growing community, having reached over 120,000 registered users in its first year of operation. It introduces new innovations to traditional web-based social gaming worlds by opening up the user base through APIs so that outside game developers can utilize the avatar graphics and animation sprites in their own implementations. Later this year, the company will introduce an Open Social Application approach for outside developers, so that anyone can participate in extending the virtual world. Since its launch MoiPal has been developed to be playable using a standard web-browser as well as mobile clients. MoiPal users have the flexibility to interact with their MoiPal character (called “Pal”) and its social network from wherever they are.

Since MySQL was sold to Sun Microsystems in 2008, Monty has started to engage in building new success stories. Through his company Open Ocean he seeks to invest in disruptive technology start-ups and help them to success.

“I am excited to invest in the MoiPal world and help it grow even faster in the future”, says Monty. “I have always been interested in virtual worlds and seen how the communities around them continue to grow. The thing that really stands out to me with MoiPal, is the way it combines the social networking aspects similar to Facebook, with the caring of your online character, like you do with Tamagotchis or in games like Sims. I am looking forward to adding educational aspects into the game, so that players learn useful things while they play. When you combine this with open interfaces and engage developers out there to expand our world in their own directions, I think we can achieve something really Great!”

“We are thrilled to have Monty on board”, says Joakim Achrén, founder of Ironstar Helsinki. “The investment will give us a stable ground for growing MoiPal to the top league. We believe that Monty’s wisdom will bring unique knowledge to the company. Ironstar supports open platforms and will focus on becoming the main open environment amongst teen virtual worlds.”

MoiPal sells branded virtual goods and offers media content to the players. The company has already partnered with some of the leading names in the music industry and with popular youth brands. Partners can promote their artists and brands in the virtual world through avatars wearing branded t-shirts and clothes. Moreover, artists can organize virtual concerts in Pal City, which is the center of the MoiPal world. Soon a new service will be launched, which offers any band to create a merchant account in MoiPal and to craft their own virtual goods for the growing MoiPal community.

“Teens are one of the most elusive audiences for marketers to reach. The success of MoiPal proves that with the right offering users can have fun for hours while meeting their friends, playing games and making new friends in a safe environment. This context provides frequent opportunities for creating immersive brand experiences, which the users find relevant and entertaining”, concluded Moaffak Ahmed, Chairman of the board of Ironstar Helsinki.

“I found it really funny, when I heard that Lordi performed a virtual concert in MoiPal for thousands of players wearing virtual Lordi masks”, says Monty. “I can envision this to be a major channel to launch youth brands in the future. When we reach a million users, I would hope we could launch for instance the H&M spring collection simultaneously in MoiPal and in the real world. Then youngsters could buy the same trendy outfit, both for themselves and for their Pal.”

For more information:

Michael Widenius, +358 400 603 271, monty (at) openoceancapital.com, www.openoceancapital.com

Joakim Achrén, +358 500 625 398, joakim (at) ironstarhelsinki.com

Last week Virtual Goods News interviewed Ironstar’s founder Joakim Achrén about on the company’s innovative branded goods initatives.

Check out the interview on Ironstar and MoiPal by clicking here.