SCVNGR Raises Another $15m in Funding

Congratulations to SCVNGR, the location-based mobile app, for recently raising another $15million in funding from European VC firm Balderton Capital! SCVNGR is a fast-growing location-based site that puts its focus on gaming by giving challenges to go with your check-ins. SCVNGR is among the most business-friendly of location-based apps as hundreds of companies, schools and organizations, both large and small, have run campaigns through SCVNGR including Google, Coca-Cola, Sarah Lawrence College and even the US Army.

I asked Founder, CEO and “Chief Ninja” Seth Priebatsch what SCVNGR has planned for all that money. He has this to say:

We’re actually spending a lot of this funding on something pretty awesome: game dynamics R&D. Over the last couple of months, we’ve discovered some pretty powerful new game mechanics that, when placed in the real-world, can achieve some pretty amazing stuff. So, we’re basically going to expand our team of game mechanists to research, explore, test and experiment with these game dynamics in the real world over the next couple of months. In a couple of weeks, you’ll start seeing some exciting new stuff coming out of SCVNGR.

I’m not sure what to think about this claim of “new game mechanics”. It sounds exciting, but I can’t help but remain a little skeptical. I’m hoping that Seth and everyone else at SCVNGR will surprise us all and bring some brand new ideas to gamification!