Bunchball
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 | |
| Available in | English |
|---|---|
| Founder | Rajat Paharia |
| URL | www |
| Launched | 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 2018, Bunchball was acquired by BI Worldwide for an undisclosed amount.[5]
In 2005, Rajat Paharia founded Bunchball.[6][7] He approached companies like Facebook, Myspace, and dating websites with the proposition of integrating social games.[8] Bunchball received initial financing from Sunil Singh, the CEO of Informance International, and Payman Pouladdej, an angel investor.[9]
In October 2006, the company closed a $2 million Series A investment round from Granite Ventures and Adobe Ventures.[6][10] In 2007, NBC hired Bunchball to develop a community website called Dunder Mifflin Infinity for the popular comedy show, The Office.[11] In 2007, Bunchball transitioned from social gaming and launched Nitro, which allows organizations to implement game mechanics in social networks, mobile applications, and websites.[12]
In January 2008, Bunchball received an additional $4 million in a Series B funding round from return investors Granite Ventures and Adobe Ventures.[9] At the time of the announcement, Bunchball had 28 employees.[13] In June 2010, Bunchball closed a $6.5 million Series C funding round from Triangle Peak Partners, Northport Investments, Correlation Ventures and Granite Ventures.[14] Bunchball now has 60 employees and has raised $21 million to date.[2][15]
Software
Bunchball Nitro is a gamification platform which aims to motivate online user engagement.[16] 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.[7][14] It currently generates 70 million unique users and 2.3 billion actions each month.[17][18][19] In March 2012, Bunchball released an updated version of Nitro, code-named Flamethrower.[15]
Bunchball Nitro for Salesforce motivates sales teams by adding gamification to Salesforce.com.[12] The Jive Gamification Module is an add-on module of the Jive social business platform, and is powered by Bunchball Nitro.[18] It gives users a set of missions to complete, each of which exposes them to a critical piece of functionality within the Jive platform.[18] Nitro for IBM Connections helps businesses train new users and keep existing users engaged within the IBM Connections application.[20] Using the Nitro platform, businesses can employ gamification techniques, like completing missions and earning rewards, to engage users with IBM Connections.[20]