SCVNGR is a social location-based gaming platform for mobile phones. The application has both a consumer and enterprise component. Companies, educational institutions, and organizations can build challenges, the core unit of their game, at places on SCVNGR from the web. The service also supports SMS.^[1][2] SCVNGR is building a game "layer" on top of the world.

By going places and doing challenges, players can earn points. They are also able to broadcast where they are and what they're up to to their friends on Facebook and Twitter. By doing challenges, players can unlock badges and real-world rewards, such as discounts or free items.

As of June 2010^[update], over 1000 companies, educational institutions, and organizations have built on SCVNGR by creating challenges (and often rewards) at their locations.^[3]

In February 2011, it was speculated that SCVNGR had reached over 1 million users.^[4]

In March 2011, SCVNGR launched LevelUp, a mobile payments platform to increase engagement and loyalty at local businesses.

Examples of SCVNGR use in Education [link]

SCVNGR is mostly utilized as a tool for orientation for prospective and new students to college campuses, but it has also been used for orientation to campus libraries. Rather than having a traditional tour guide approach to orientation, colleges have used the SCVNGR application to allow students to visit the places they need to know but through an active, collaborative group activity. It works as an icebreaker for meeting new people, and introduces the students to different locations by having them complete challenges at each location for rewards. The University of Louisville in Kentucky is one example of the use SCVNGR for orientation. An instructional video of their orientation can be seen at the SCVNGR for University website.^[5]

As for SCVNGR use in library orientations, librarians from Boise State University and Oregon State University have created SCVNGR hunts and documented its use for library introductions for international students and bibliographic instruction.^[6]

Funding [link]

This section requires expansion.

• The company raised a $35k Seed round on 6/08 with Dreamit Ventures. A $750k round was raised in 8/09 with Highland Capital Partners.
• A $4M Series B round was raised on 1/10 with Google Ventures,^[7] Highland Capital Partners and DreamIT Ventures.
• On January 11, 2011 an additional $15M round was raised with Google Ventures, Balderton Capital, and Highland Capital Partners.

See also [link]

• Geosocial networking
• Gowalla
• Location-based game
• Social gaming
• Gbanga

References [link]

External links [link]

• Official website
• SCVNGR at CrunchBase