The founder of Rift developer Trion Worlds, Lars Buttler, has been named as a finalist for the Ernst & Young entrepreneur of the Year award.
The prize recognises “outstanding” entrepreneurs who demonstrate “excellence and extraordinary” success in areas such as innovation and financial performance.
Trion Worlds, which Buttler founded in 2006, recently announced that it had scored $85 million in investment, on top of garnering $100 million from an initial funding round.
As well as forming the Rift developer, he has previously worked as VP for Global Online at EA, where he led strategy for MMOG Ultima Online.
Previous winners of the Entrepreneur of the Year award include Dell founder Michael Dell and Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos.
The winners of the 2012 prize will be announced on June 2nd.