The Queen is set to join Britain's growing band of dot.com millionaires, just four months after investing £100,000 in an internet company.

It is believed her shares in getmapping.com will be worth £1.2 million when the firm, which is producing an aerial map of the entire UK, floats next month.

The company is expected to be valued at more than £40 million, though the Queen is not expected to cash in her three per cent stake, according to the Sunday Telegraph.

Sir Michael Peat, the Keeper of the Privy Purse, is said to have advised the Queen on the getmapping.com investment.

Tristram Cary, managing director and co-founder of getmapping.com, said today: "We are delighted to have the Privy Purse on board but we can't say more about the Queen's involvement than that."

Both Mr Cary and his partner, Joe Studholme, are set to become dot.com millionaires in their own right when the company floats next month.

While the eventual aim is to provide a complete aerial photograph of the UK, the company still has some way to go. At present, 85 per cent of England has been photographed.

When completed, the aerial map will consist of 120,000 frames of photography, each covering 2.5 square kilometres.

Mr Cary said the Ministry of Defence had raised no objections to the aerial mapping exercise, which took in everything on the ground, including military airfields and other potentially sensitive sites.

He said: "I think the reason is the MoD has been aware for decades that the country could be overflown by spy planes and anything really sensitive is hidden away."

He agreed it was unlikely there would be any protests to the company about invasion of privacy by the Royal Family since the Queen herself was a shareholder.

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