Conduit lands funding [updated]

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Aug 212007
 

For those of you who have noticed the name Nabeel Hyatt popping up all over the place in the MMO-to-Web sort of space over the last year, well, now you know what he’s up to — along with some Turbine and Harmonix vets. 🙂 Conduit Labs, of which he is CEO, just announced landing $5.5m in Series A funding to do “social online entertainment”:

We want to deliver a completely new kind of massively multiplayer experience — one that requires minutes, not hours, to access and learn, and one that is as rich and social as real-world activities like shooting hoops or jamming in a band. And we wanted it all in a browser, as accessible as your email.

The Conduit Labs Blog has an informal take on how the company got going, and there’s coverage at 3pointD, at Read/Write Web, and of course at TechCrunch. Edit: Virtual Worlds News landed some interview tidbits.

Edit: two posts popped up with some more meaty detail. There’s Susan Wu’s post about why CRV funded Conduit, which discusses more the general space; and there’s a great interview of Nabeel at WorldsInMotion which digs deeper into what an actual product might look like.

  6 Responses to “Conduit lands funding [updated]”

  1. reBang weblog says:
    August 23, 2007 at 12:30 am

    social networking / casual MMO hybrid”. I follow Susan Wu’s blog which has an entry discussing it (Link), but it’s getting attention on Mashable (Link), the Virtual News Network (Link), and – of course – onRaph Koster’s blog (Link). I’d be lying if I said I was especially interested in Conduit’s project. The whole social networking meme is getting a bit ripe, afaic. Maybe if they introduced virtual epidemics. Those things have certainly sparked

  2. conduit labs » Blog Archive » how we started conduit labs says:
    August 21, 2007 at 10:01 pm

    […] Raph’s Website » Conduit lands funding August 22nd, 2007 […]

  3. What Is Conduit Labs? : Metaverse Network says:
    August 22, 2007 at 6:39 pm

    […] The news of Conduit Labs receiving US$5.5 million in series A funding is everywhere at the moment. The backers are Charles River Ventures and Prism VentureWorks, two venture capital heavy-hitters in Web 2.0 and virtual world circles. The story is being carried by 3pointD, Read/Write Web, TechCrunch, Virtual Worlds News, and Worlds In Motion. Personally, I first heard about it from Raph. […]

  4. JuJutsu says:
    August 23, 2007 at 7:33 am

    “That’s something Areae is trying to focus on – how to build an actual ecosystem and a real web platform for people to work in.”

    Anyone care to elaborate? 😉

  5. Raph says:
    August 23, 2007 at 8:23 am

    Soon… soon. 🙂

  6. Tim Holt says:
    August 23, 2007 at 12:09 pm

    Austin?

  7. Raph says:
    August 23, 2007 at 12:21 pm

    Not that soon. 🙂

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