Greetings Uplanders!
Today we are excited to announce that Upland is taking it to the next level… We’ve closed our Series A fundraising round of $18M USD! The round is led by Animoca Brands which is one of the most prominent thought leaders and investors in the Blockchain Gaming and NFT space.
Three years ago, Upland was founded with the vision to create the world’s biggest metaverse and map it to the real world. We envisioned this metaverse to be powered by a realistic economy, which brings the benefits of true ownership to stakeholders via the use of blockchain technology and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
At the heart of this metaverse, we wanted every participant to have the ability to own and trade virtual properties while also being able to build, become micro-entrepreneurs, and create virtual location-based communities. We also knew that in order to deliver our value proposition to mass audiences, several conditions had to be met:
First, the metaverse had to be mobile-friendly and accessible via all platforms, meaning it had to be discoverable in the Apple App Store, Google Play Store, and also on the Web. Second, it had to hide the complexities of blockchain-based asset management behind a simple and familiar user interface, while still adhering to the benefits of true ownership. Finally, it had to empower people to drive value in and out of the ecosystem using fiat currency – in a way which is legal and safe for worldwide stakeholders, including the US.
Over the past two years, with the beta launch in early 2020, we’ve been hard at work at realizing this vision. As a result, Upland quickly became one of the most widely adopted blockchain based apps. Milestone by milestone, we’ve made tremendous progress, including:
As you can see, we’ve been busy… But, above everything else, we’ve fostered a thriving community of brilliant Uplanders who care deeply, and are actively helping us realize this vision. We are lucky to have so many passionate players who are willing to offer critical feedback that helps inform our decision making process on every project. While there will always be different opinions about the tactical decisions we make, each day we are driven by a single question: How do we drive value to all stakeholders in the metaverse through innovation and interactive content?
Our series A round is something that we have anticipated and have been working on for a while. While Upland has been operating as a financially-sound business – driving all proceeds back to the development and growth of the metaverse – the main reasoning behind this raise was to give us the opportunity to scale the team faster, create more brand partnerships and help grow the metaverse further, including international locations.
Over the past couple of months, we’ve already made some key hires across the board which we will announce shortly. The scaling of the Upland team will now allow us to execute and deliver on multiple projects in parallel, including overall metaverse mechanics, Metaventures (aka player-run businesses), Legits, Cars, the NFT Portal and interoperability, third-party developer tools, connecting players and more.
We’ve been waiting anxiously to announce our Series A round, and look forward to resuming our regular roadmap updates and quarterly AMAs. As the economy matures and develops, and more opportunities are present for participants to exchange value among themselves, expect to see tweaks and adjustments made to the macro-economic parameters in the metaverse.
We want to take this opportunity to thank all of you Uplanders and offer a collective high-five to all of you for making this possible. We’re looking at just the tip of the iceberg. Now, we’re headed back to working our hearts out to take Upland to the next level and... beyond!
Let’s Rebuild the World!
Dirk, Idan and Mani
