Why we are going all-in on Web3

Change is how it started

Back in 2017, I started the company with a simple vision: create a future where advertising sucks less. As an indie studio owner, it pained me to work with intrusive ad solutions that compromised the experience of my users, as well as my retention metrics. We thought it would be worth it to try and change advertising for the better. So we built an in-play platform to change how advertising was done, helping creators monetize the real estate inside their games and brands target the right audience in the right game at the right time. This leads to games where brands and content merge and become a unified experience.

Since then, we have built a successful platform, with over 600 games from small and large publishers like Gameloft and Supersonic. I couldn’t be more grateful for these creators and publishers who trust us to help monetize their content.

On the other side of the marketplace, we worked with hundreds of brands, directly or indirectly, helping change their perception about gaming being a niche audience. We have contributed to build ‘gaming as a media channel’, a concept that wasn’t a thing with brands or agencies even 2 years ago, and helped hundreds of brands reach that audience at scale.

The success of our company, raising $37m from top VCs and growing to over 80 staff, has been powered by our vision (helping creators by changing advertising for the better) and our technology – having built a scalable platform instead of an army of sales people.

Change helps fast track our vision

Last year, web3 and the metaverse caught up to us. We see the metaverse as the next generation of the internet – a more immersive and decentralised internet. The most exciting part is that it enables a new creator economy which isn’t only centered on attention, but ownership – via tokens or NFTs. An economy which I understand well, having personally benefited from it as an early crypto investor (2013) and early metaverse land owner (fun fact – I was one of the earliest land owner in Somnium Space since 2017, a top 5 metaverse platform today.

We believe that a decentralised metaverse will redistribute wealth across creators in a more equitable way, and lead to a new prosperous digital economy creating millions of jobs. Overall, our shift to web3 gives us a chance to better help creators monetize their content, and beyond just ad revenue. As a company focused on helping creators monetize, shaping the new creator economy was a hard opportunity to pass.

The metaverse is also the ultimate playground for our vision – a chance to fully redefine how brands interact with customers, away from the long established ad standards of web2. In the metaverse, brands won’t just place ads. Brands will build immersive experiences that people can enjoy, socialise in, or buy products. Think of it like a new immersive content strategy. This is the ultimate playground to express our ultimate vision of a world where brands and content are one, and where users are not interrupted by intrusive messages.

I believe the metaverse will help us fast track our company vision by 10 years. We finally have a white canvas to express this vision without restrictions around web2 standards, business models and a duopoly – Google and Facebook – controlling 80% of the digital ad budgets. In the blue ocean that is web3, we get to create the standards. Time to build the metaverse and accelerate this new creator economy.

Change is exciting

To fulfill our vision to build the metaverse, we needed to acquire skills at scale. To that end, today we’re announcing a merger with Landvault, the largest builder in the metaverse. Landvault has a team of 100 builders working on Sandbox, NFTWorlds, and Decentraland, and already 50+ projects under their belt. Barely a year old, they are already establishing a clear dominance as a metaverse builder. We are now the most prolific builders in the metaverse and best equipped to help more brands enter the metaverse.

More than this – we are rebranding the whole company as Landvault. Admix is a name that we love, but we have outgrown it. We have to go into web 3 under the right brand. While the founders of Landvault are moving into an exciting new venture (keep an eye on them!) the core team of operations, creative, sales and build are all coming onboard ❤️ and we couldn’t be more excited to build the next chapter in the metaverse together.

Our reformulated mission statement is to accelerate the metaverse economy via technology. So you can expect us to not only build delightful brand experiences but also tools, infrastructure and platforms around it to facilitate the growth of the metaverse, completing our transition from an adtech company to a metaverse-tech company. Check us out: http://twitter.com/thelandvault

Change is hard

We’re not just going into web3, we’re only going into web3. This is what it takes to win a market. We cannot become the largest builder in the metaverse and the largest in-game ad network. So change also includes making difficult decisions. This week has been the hardest for me as a leader:

• most difficult by far was re-organising our team around the metaverse and as part of this change, have let go of several team members. It was heartbreaking, because they have not done anything wrong. We will be supporting the transition as best we can. If you’re hiring across sales, product or marketing and looking for top talent, please give us a shout.

• we are retiring the name Admix – end of an era! Going forward, the whole company will be known as Landvault.

• in 60 days, we will stop standard in-play operations – traditional publishers won’t receive in-play ads and advertisers won’t have access to our platform. However we won’t stop supporting our publishers. More news will be released in the next few days. If you are an advertiser working with Admix, no stress! We have new tools and new destinations in the metaverse for you to target!

Change is obvious

To many this might look like a crazy decision – to punt a proven, fast growing business for an emerging space, months after a $25m Series B. It may well be. But there are signals that would be hard to ignore:

• every advertiser and agency asking us for a metaverse offering

• obvious product market fit of our metaverse solution we piloted since January. Our metaverse revenue run rate (kicked off in January 2022) is overtaking our in-play revenue stream (started Jan 2020) this month and growing a 4x the speed

• blue ocean opportunity vs red ocean in web2 adtech, owned by the duopoly (Google and Facebook)

I am grateful for our VCs and Board member to support this logical transition. This was a decision we will look back on for years as the most important company-defining decision we have made so far 🙏🏼

Change is the only way

When the market is trying to tell you something, you have to listen. As a CEO, my job is to always be listening – this is what sparked the decision to go all-in in web3 and better fulfill our vision.

We fully expect other players to jump in the space. But will they have the guts to be all-in – the only way to win the market? Time will tell.

As an entrepreneur, i was too young to participate in the first wave of the internet and dot.com boom, but reading about the history and seeing the market today, it felt like an incredibly exciting time to be a part of. Many of the big companies of today seem to have been born at that time. It is that time again. A change of that magnitude might not happen for another 15 to 20 years, and i feel privileged to be able to lead this company into this exciting new era.

Thanks for reading. It’s time to be all in in web3. It’s time to build the next phase of the internet.

Sam Huber, CEO Landvault (formerly Admix)