TPLD worked with Angus Hay of DC Consulting in preparing a new business plan to take the company forward, and it was DC Consulting that made the introduction to Barwell. The investment of £430k, completed in mid-February, incorporated the conversion of loans and preference shares from existing investors alongside new equity being introduced from Barwell and the Scottish Co-investment Fund. The funding package will enable Piggot and colleagues to embark upon a marketing plan which will see them take the Virtual World product to prospective clients in a ‘road show’ format. TPLD currently sells mainly in the UK, but has prospects in Singapore and Europe; in addition, Barwell is providing contacts which will help the company to enter the USA.
Games based learning company TPLD has secured new investment from Barwell Group and the SCF which it will use to launch its new virtual world platform, and intensify its sales and marketing activities.
Jim Piggot, TPLD’s chief executive officer, sees new opportunities arising after a year or more when the large corporations which are the company’s main sales targets more or less shut down their discretionary spending. TPLD had traditionally concentrated on providing tools, products and services to the emergent interactive game based learning market, which Piggot has now developed out to offer a complete virtual learning and communication solution for clients. This deeper offering has seen a significant increase in interest in the last few months.
The market driver proceeds from a number of factors: corporations which cut back their expenditure on traditional communication channels for widely dispersed staff are instead looking for innovative low cost solutions; their staff are increasingly ‘digital natives’ with work routines already featuring web-based media; and all sectors of society are becoming much more accustomed to communicating digitally, especially through social networking. All this adds up to brighter prospects for TPLD’s technology.
TPLD recently delivered a virtual world site to Milton Keynes Council to support the 13 to 19 year young people community in seeking career and personal advice. TPLD has incorporated a set of team building games into the MKC world, which it believes to be the first ever such project in the UK.
TPLD is confident that it has developed a wide expertise in games based learning (GBL) and, through that, a deep understanding of the immersive nature of web-based virtual environments. It now presents itself under three core competencies: the deployment of virtual world technology to provide organizations with a new medium to deliver education, training and employee communications; the development of real-time multi-player serious games environments to client specifications; and the provision of tools and associated services to strategic partners thus minimising their time and cost in building up a GBL development capability. The virtual worlds will be delivered in three forms: standard virtual meeting rooms for hire; conference productions; and full customised multi-day corporate events.
The use of immersive virtual worlds has become an attractive proposition for organisations to deliver education, training and employee communications to a globally dispersed workforce using an engaging technology to realise cost savings through reduced travel. However, early adopters of virtual world platforms have also found that there are still obstacles: massive client downloads make deployment challenging, and per-event costs are not at a compelling price point to make it an easy buying decision.
TPLD’s virtual world technology has met these challenges by using a standard web browser as the client which removes the download issue, and offering a pricing model that is claimed to show up to 90 % savings over conventional large scale events. TPLD can quickly build a showcase for clients, which can offer in effect a perpetual environment for hosting live events, such as an auditorium event, a small meeting event, one to one conversations, or a ‘question time’ event – all using voice and video to communicate over the internet and the broadband network. The company believes that this represents a more engaging and enjoyable learning medium than the disembodied experience of web or audio conferencing and most webbased learning content.
TPLD worked with DC Consulting in preparing a new business plan to take the company forward, and it was DC Consulting that made the introduction to Barwell. The investment of £430k, completed in mid-February, incorporated the conversion of loans and preference shares from existing investors alongside new equity being introduced from Barwell and the Scottish Co-investment Fund. The funding package will enable Piggot and colleagues to embark upon a marketing plan which will see them take the Virtual World product to prospective clients in a ‘road show’ format. TPLD currently sells mainly in the UK, but has prospects in Singapore and Europe; in addition, Barwell is providing contacts which will help the company to enter the USA.