Posted by mobile phone:
MindArk the company behind space based virtual world Entropia announced yesterday that it plans to IPO next year – which will make it the first such company to list. Expect lots of corny headlines around the virtual world/real shares theme…

Entropia is free to play and makes money only from sales of virtual items. Turnover in 2006 was $9.3m, up over 100% on 2005.

They have had two virtual item sales at the $100k level – an asteroid resort (now apparently worth $1m) and more recently a virtual banking license.

Entropia dollars convert to real dollars at a rate of 10 to 1 and players can withdraw their money from real world ATMs.

Also in the MindArk portfolio is a deal with China to build a virtual world that will make it easier to work from home.

All reported in the FT.