Conduit Labs claims it has come up with a new way to merge social networking and online gaming, but the stealthy startup isn’t giving much away.
The company, which on Wednesday announced a $5.5 million round of funding from Charles River Ventures and Prism VentureWorks, hopes to stand out from the crowd by creating a browser-based virtual world where friends can gather to play games, much in the same way they might hang out in the real world and play a game of monopoly or pick-up basketball.
“What we’re basically building is a real-time social network, and it’s all about what you want to do with your friends right now. You can play games with them,” said Conduit Labs founder Nabil Hyatt.
The social gaming concept has become very popular in the past several months, as investors look to meld mainstream social networks such as MySpace with virtual worlds like Second Life and massively multiplayer online games such as World of Warcraft. These online worlds are seen to have the potential to generate tremendous revenues from immersive advertising and the sale of virtual goods.
Disney’s $350 million acquisition of Club Penguin, an online virtual world for children, earlier this month may have only increased pressure on investors to make their bets before it is too late.
Last week, Kongregate, a social networking site for casual gamers, received $5 million in a first round of funding. Kongregate allows users to upload games and chat and connect around their interest in games. At nearly the same time, the San Francisco-based Doppelganger was given $11 million for a virtual world where members connect in 3-D environments around music and pop culture.
It is not clear how Conduit, which expects its site to be ready for a public trial period by the end of the year, will manage to separate itself from the pack.
Will Kohler, a partner at Prism VentureWorks, said Conduit’s goal is to bridge the gap between the way people hang out online and how they interact with each other in the real world.
“It involves a good balance of cooperation and competition, of giving yourself a purpose so you’re not left wondering why you’re there and what you have in common with people,” he said. “We found that game play adds that, and can be used as a platform to build off of and take you in many directions.”
But Conduit Labs has been short on specifics. Charles River Ventures partner Susan Wu wrote in her blog that Conduit players users won’t be racing go-karts, saving princesses or slaying dragons. Mr. Hyatt said the site will tap into existing online social networks and profiles that users have already built for themselves elsewhere, so that users won’t have to recreate their online identities.
Conduit is not likely the last social gaming site to receive funding. Mr. Hyatt, in fact, would not be surprised to see the pace of investment quicken.
“There’s a ton of interest, but a lot of people are not pulling the trigger because they’re not sure what to pull the trigger on,” he said. “I think VCs have shown a decent amount of self-control, but we’ll see if that continues after the Club Penguin exit.”