Turbine, the company that publishes The Lord of the Rings Online, has revealed the fact that it has obtained some 40 million dollars in funding from several sources. The company says that companies like Highland Capital Partners, Polaris Venture Partners, Tudor Ventures, and Columbia Capital, that already have offered financing to the company, were part of the latest money offering, with Time Warner leading the equity financing together with GGV Capital.

Jim Crowley, Chief Executive Officer of Turbine CEO, declared that "With this funding, we are uniquely positioned to change the future of online entertainment as we bring new titles to market, expand the platforms we support, and introduce new technologies to sustain self-evolving game worlds."

The surprise name in this latest round of financing for Turbine is Time Warner, a company that is deeply rooted in the traditional media and was not particularly interested in videogames up until this year. The same Time Warner has bought SCi shares worth almost 23 million dollars in April, as part of a deal that will see SCi and Eidos branded products distributed by Time Warner. It seems that the funding offered to Turbine might, in the future, develop into a similar distribution deal.

At the moment, Turbine is gearing up to release, in the final months of 2008, an expansion for The Lord of the Rings Online MMO. The expansion will be titled Mines of Moria and will represent the second volume in the saga of the Rings, taking place just after the heroes of the novels have left Moria. The players will get a chance to follow in their footsteps and even battle a Balrog, if the conditions are right.

It's unlikely that all the money secured by Turbine goes into the development of already existing projects, so we might be in for a new MMO related announcement from the company in the following months.