Dublin, Ireland-based developer eRepublik Labs has raised $2.8 million in funding for its first game, the free-to-play “eRepublik – The New World.” That’s a heck of a lot of money considering that last year, $762,000 was raised and in 2007 only $277,000 was raised.

The money was raised in a series A funding round that was led by Paris, France’s AGF Private Equity. The funds are to go toward further development of "eRepublik." Now why would so much money be able to be raised for a free-to-play, browser-based social game with no A.I. that has only been live for just over 500 days? The game has over 350,000 “citizen accounts” and 120,000 active players "... who play frequently enough to keep their citizens alive and well."

"eRepublik" chief Alexis Bonte said, “With the help of AGF Private Equity and Guillaume Lautour, whom I am delighted to welcome to our board, we will have the means to make our ideas, along with those gathered from our enthusiastic community, come true."

Why do the AGF Private Equity and Guillaume Lautour care so much about helping out "eRepublik" that they would help the company raise $2.8 million dollars just to keep the game going and to implement new ideas? These must be some crazy and exciting ideas in store for such a huge amount of money.

Do these companies see “eRepublik – The New World” as a great model for the possible future uprising of the free-to-play MMORPGs, and want to be a part of it? Or is there more behind the scenes than we know about?

Posted by Nikki Lee
June 20, 2009

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