| Bunchball | |
| Language: | English |
| Founder: | Rajat Paharia |
| Launch Date: | 2005 |
| Current Status: | Active |
Bunchball provides a cloud-based software as a service gamification product intended to help companies improve customer loyalty and online engagement using game mechanics.[1] Bunchball was founded by Rajat Paharia in 2005 and has raised $17.5 million in funding.[2] [3] [4]
In 2005, Rajat Paharia founded Bunchball.[5] [6] He approached companies like Facebook, Myspace, and dating websites with the proposition of integrating social games.[7] Bunchball received initial financing from Sunil Singh, the CEO of Informance International, and Payman Pouladdej, an angel investor.[8]
In October 2006, the company closed a $2 million Series A investment round from Granite Ventures and Adobe Ventures.[5] [9] In 2007, NBC hired Bunchball to develop a community website called Dunder Mifflin Infinity for the popular comedy show, The Office.[10] In 2007, Bunchball transitioned from social gaming and launched Nitro, which allows organizations to implement game mechanics in social networks, mobile applications, and websites.[11]
In January 2008, Bunchball received an additional $4 million in a Series B funding round from return investors Granite Ventures and Adobe Ventures.[8] At the time of the announcement, Bunchball had 28 employees.[12] In June 2010, Bunchball closed a $6.5 million Series C funding round from Triangle Peak Partners, Northport Investments, Correlation Ventures and Granite Ventures.[13] Bunchball now has 60 employees and has raised $21 million to date.[2] [14]
Bunchball Nitro is a gamification platform which aims to motivate online user engagement.[15] It contains a set of game mechanics, including badges, team points, and leader boards for websites, social communities, mobile applications, and desktop and enterprise applications.[6] [13] It currently generates 70 million unique users and 2.3 billion actions each month.[16] [17] [18] In March 2012, Bunchball released an updated version of Nitro, code-named Flamethrower.[14]
Bunchball Nitro for Salesforce motivates sales teams by adding gamification to Salesforce.com.[11] The Jive Gamification Module is an add-on module of the Jive social business platform, and is powered by Bunchball Nitro.[17] It gives users a set of missions to complete, each of which exposes them to a critical piece of functionality within the Jive platform.[17] Nitro for IBM Connections helps businesses train new users and keep existing users engaged within the IBM Connections application.[19] Using the Nitro platform, businesses can employ gamification techniques, like completing missions and earning rewards, to engage users with IBM Connections.[19]
In 2007, 40,000 people generated more than 1 million page views on Dunder Mifflin Infinity, a separate NBC Universal website which Bunchball developed. Dunder Mifflin Infinity gives users the experience of being an "employee" at Dunder Mifflin, the fictional company featured in the show.[20]
In 2009, the USA Network hired Bunchball to “gamify” the website of Psych, a television show.[21] [22] Page views surged to 16 million last season, up from 9 million the season before.[23] [24] The average visitor came 4 to 5 times per month, compared with just twice a month the previous season, and stayed on the site for 22 minutes a visit, up from 14 minutes.[23] [24]
In December 2010, Bunchball Nitro powered Playboy’s Facebook app, called Miss Social, which was a month-long competition between women who aspired to be in Playboy.[25] [26] Due to the competition, Playboy saw an 85 percent rate of re-engagement and a 60 percent improvement in revenues from one month to the next. Since starting the app in December, Playboy’s active user base has grown to 80,000.[25] [26]
In 2011, Bunchball partnered up with the Los Angeles Kings to gamify their fan website.[7] [27]