Yuga Labs announces restructuring to develop ‘Otherside’ metaverse

Yuga Labs, the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collection team, has begun restructuring the company to prioritize its core cryptocurrency business, including the Otherside metaverse project, the company’s co-founder Greg Solano said in a recent post. At X.

GM Today is a really difficult day. I am passionate about changing oil prices and getting us back to our roots, and that means making difficult decisions. The hardest thing so far has been saying goodbye to some talented team members. Here’s the message I sent to the team this morning: pic.twitter.com/gBkoNf2iK3

— Garga.eth(Greg Solano) 🍌(@CryptoGarga) April 26, 2024

As part of the restructuring process, Yuga Labs is reducing its workforce, but the company did not specify how many employees would be affected. Solano said Yuga Labs has “lost its way” and needs to become a “smaller, more agile, encrypted team.”

“The creative-first ethos that has driven this company since its inception has been obscured by complex corporate processes. We work hard and care, but we end up in groups and committees. We are planning more than what we are launching,” Solano said.

He cited Yuga Lab’s early success as “playing the game on easy mode” at a time when creator royalties for NFTs were soaring. But the easy mode is over. Solano said Yuga Labs is now in “hard mode” and is “going from zero to one” with incredible support from the community.

Solano also noted that Yuga Labs is working on other projects, including HV-MTL and Legends of the Mara (LoTM), to focus its gaming efforts on 3D Otherside. The company announced earlier this month that game publisher Faraway had acquired the HV-MTL and LoTM brands.

This is not the first restructuring of Yuga Labs. Last October, the company announced a reorganization and layoffs focused on its U.S. employees. At the time, Yuga Labs had about 100 employees worldwide.

Yuga Labs announced a restructuring that will allow our team to better focus on our core priorities. Although certain roles have been affected, these changes are necessary for the organization to move forward.
Please see the author’s notes for more details. @dalegre https://t.co/722YfqwaCB Check out the official blog.

— Yuga Labs (@yugalabs) October 6, 2023

Yuga Labs’ efforts to recover to the starting point

Yuga Labs is best known for creating the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collection, which has become one of the most valuable and prominent NFT projects.

Following the success of BAYC, the company launched several additional NFT collections such as Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) and Bored Ape Kennel Club (BAKC). In March 2022, Yuga Labs raised $450 million in funding led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) to develop ‘Otherside’, a gamified metaverse that will integrate various NFT collections.

However, BAYC’s glory began to fade after the cryptocurrency recession of 2022-2023. Prices fell and some high-profile backers sold NFTs.

The floor price for one of these blue-chip NFTs fell below 11 Ether earlier this month, according to data from NFT Price Floor. This reflects a decline of more than 90% from the collection’s peak almost two years ago.