Tilia

01 / WHAT IT BUILT

What the company did

Tilia is a San Francisco payments company spun out of Linden Lab, the creator of Second Life. Officially launched in 2019 from the team that built Second Life's payments, it is an all-in-one platform for game, virtual-world and mobile-app developers: payment processing, in-game transactions and payouts to creators, converting in-world tokens into fiat currencies like the US dollar. Getting licensed took seven years and $35M — Tilia holds money-transmitter licenses in 48 US states and territories — and it now powers millions of transactions, including Second Life's $650M economy. In March 2023 it raised a strategic investment from J.P. Morgan Payments under new CEO Brad Oberwager, and in April 2024 cross-border payments company Thunes signed a definitive agreement to acquire Tilia from Linden Lab.

03 / EVENT HISTORY

Events in the structured record

1. 2019
   Launched by Linden Lab

   Linden Lab officially launches Tilia, the payments platform built from its Second Life payments team — the product of a seven-year, $35M effort to secure money-transmitter licenses.

2. 2023
   J.P. Morgan strategic investment

   Tilia raises a strategic investment from J.P. Morgan Payments and appoints Brad Oberwager as CEO, with Ashton Porter joining as CBO and Aston Waldman as CFO.

3. 2024
   Acquired by Thunes

   Thunes, a global cross-border payments company, signs a definitive agreement to acquire Tilia from majority owner Linden Lab (subject to regulatory approvals), with an exclusive five-year partnership for Linden Lab's payment processing.