6th Grader Builds Company on Earnings from MMORPG Sales

John Biggs

Biggs is the East Coast Editor of TechCrunch. Biggs has written for the New York Times, InSync, USA Weekend, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Money and a number of other outlets on technology and wristwatches. He is the former editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.com and lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. You can Tweet him here and G+ him here. Email him directly at... → Learn More

Wednesday, September 19th, 2007

This isn’t quite our forte, but it’s insane nonetheless. Arjun Mehta, a 6th-grader in Silicon Valley is creating a company called PlaySpan for buying and selling virtual goods. Fair enough. A little website hosted on Dad’s server in the basement, maybe $500 in sales a month. Cool, right?

Well, the kid just raised $6.5 million in Series A funding. What is he going to do with the money? Ride around in a scale-model car like in The Toy? Buy Richard Pryor? I think I’ve seen this sort of behavior before. A few years back… what did they call it? The website balloon? Oh well. It’s probably nothing.

The company will actually partner with game makers to sell these items, rather than offering a clearinghouse for gamer to gamer sales. An interesting concept, but not rock solid. Next up: my 20-month-old Kasper will be starting a company that buys and sells pictures of airplanes and cats. We expect a $5 billion valuation by Sunday.

PlaySpan Takes $6.5m Series A, Founder In Grade 6 [TechCrunch]

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