Pete Parsons, the former general manager at Bungie Studios, maker of the popular "Halo" game franchise, has landed about $1 million in angel financing for a new Bellevue startup called Fyreball.

Parsons, who left Bungie earlier this year and founded Fyreball in March, isn't saying much about the product direction of the startup. But the 42-year-old did confirm that it is building an alternative to e-mail that allows users to track messages and discussions as they circulate around the Web. That means a Fyreball user could trace who viewed, commented on or forwarded a funny video, a scientific report or other digital content.

Pete Parsons poses with Halo's Master Chief P-I Photo/2004

"It is definitely that and more," said Parsons. "I think there is a lot we can do to help connect people together and present content and information in a rich, interesting and playful way."

Parsons wouldn't say how the system works, adding that a full launch is slated for early next year.

Participating in the financing round were the Alliance of Angels of Seattle and the Band of Angels of Silicon Valley, marking the first time that the two angel groups have worked together on a deal.

Susannah Malarkey, executive director of the Technology Alliance, which oversees the Alliance of Angels, said Fyreball attracted a lot of interest.

"There was no problem raising the money," said Malarkey, adding that the company attracted attention because of the team, the product direction and the reasonable valuation.

Parsons has assembled some of his former cohorts at Bungie, whose spinout from Microsoft was announced in October after "Halo 3" recorded more than $300 million in its first week of sales.

The Fyreball team includes Michael Evans, the former lead engineer on "Halo" and "Halo 2," as well as Michel Bastien, a lead producer on "Halo 3." Startup veteran Jordan Weisman, who previously founded FASA Interactive, WizKids and 42 Entertainment, also is working for the startup as chief creative officer. In 1999, Weisman sold FASA -- creator of the "MechWarrior" PC game -- to Microsoft

Advising Fyreball is the former vice president of Microsoft Game Studios, Ed Fries, who was in the news Thursday for a new startup that allows "World of Warcraft" players to receive miniature statues of their game characters. That company, dubbed FigurePrints, plans to launch next Tuesday.

While Fyreball is creating a new communications platform for people to track digital content, Parsons said the core concept actually arose from a computer game idea.

"I woke up in the middle of the night and went 'Hey, this would be a sweet game,'" recalls Parsons.

He says "playfulness is at the heart of anything good" and that games will play a key role in Fyreball's development.

"Creating game-like tension is an important thing to do no matter what venture we do. We have a couple ideas of how we can make things playful," he says, declining to elaborate.

Other startups also are experimenting with new communication systems, including Seattle-based TrailFire which last year introduced a service to follow a "trail" of Web comments that had been added to a specific Web page.