Bunchball
Available inEnglish
Founder(s)Rajat Paharia
URLwww.bunchball.com
Launched2005
Current statusActive

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]

History

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]

Software

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]

Major projects

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]

References

  1. ↑ Start-Ups And Corporations Alike Having Fun With Gamification The Wall Street Journal.
  2. 1 2 Sinsky, Regina. Work with the cool kids! Culture is a weapon in 2011's hiring battle CNET.
  3. ↑ Commercialising Ideas Archived October 16, 2011, at the Wayback Machine XMedia Lab.
  4. ↑ Speakers Archived 2012-06-11 at the Wayback Machine Engage Expo.
  5. 1 2 Taylor, Colleen. For Startups, Timing Is Everything — Just Ask Bunchball The New York Times. May 2, 2011.
  6. 1 2 Bunchball Brings Gamification Platform to Salesforce.com Gamification Blog.
  7. 1 2 Macale, Sherilynn. Bunchball wants to be the motivation engine for the internet TheNextWeb. October 27, 2011.
  8. 1 2 Glazowski, Paul. Bunchball’s $4m Funding To Expand Social Gaming Footprint Into 2009 Mashable. April 13, 2008.
  9. ↑ Cashmore, Pete. Bunchball raises 2 million for Myspace games Mashable. October 20, 2006.
  10. ↑ Hsu, Jeremy. Gamification Pioneer Talks Power of Behavior-Altering Games Archived 2012-01-19 at the Wayback Machine Innovation News Daily.
  11. 1 2 Shayon, Sheila. Social Media Gamer Bunchball Adds Brand-Friendly Apps brandchannel. August 24, 2011.
  12. ↑ Macmillan, Douglas. ‘Gamification’: A Growing Business Bloomberg Businessweek. January 19, 2011.
  13. 1 2 Takahashi, Dean. Bunchball raises $6.5M for gamification expansion VentureBeat. June 13, 2011.
  14. 1 2 Takahashi, Dean. Bunchball personalizes “Flamethrower” gamification for each user VentureBeat. March 14, 2012.
  15. ↑ PCD Stanford. February 19, 2010.
  16. ↑ Wang, Ray. News Analysis: Bunchball Gamifies Salesforce.com And Delivers Simplified Applets Forbes. August 24, 2011.
  17. 1 2 3 Products Bunchball.
  18. ↑ Odell, Patricia. Missions, Leader Boards, News Feeds Style "Rio" Sweeps Site PROMO. April 12, 2011.
  19. 1 2 Nitro for IBM Connections. Bunchball.
  20. ↑ Steinberg, Brian. Why Doctor House Gets Condolence Messages AdAge.
  21. ↑ Takahashi, Dean. TV network taps game startups to launch social game portal VentureBeat.
  22. ↑ Takahashi, Dean. USA Network scores with gamificaion on Psych TV show VentureBeat. January 21, 2011.
  23. 1 2 Pham, Alex. Businesses are using game mechanics online to rev up sales Los Angeles Times. February 28, 2011.
  24. 1 2 Knight, Kristina. How brands can capitalize on gaming trends BizReport. April 13, 2011.
  25. 1 2 Takahashi, Dean. With Playboy as proof, Bunchball says gamification works VentureBeat. May 3, 2011.
  26. 1 2 5 Brands with Winning Gamification Strategies TheNextWeb.
  27. ↑ Sniderman, Zachary. L.A Kings Are First Pro Sports Team to Get Gamified Mashable.
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