Why we invested in The Sandbox, the on-ramp to the Metaverse

Welcome to the Metaverse, where the lines between how people live, work, and play are blurring as the physical and virtual worlds converge.

The Sandbox is a decentralized and community-driven gaming ecosystem where creators can design, share, and sell digital assets that are built on the Ethereum blockchain. This is a virtual world that has broad support and high engagement – with more than 500,000 registered wallets, 12,000 unique virtual “LAND” owners, and hundreds of brand partners. 

We invested in The Sandbox because it is disrupting the gaming ecosystem and accelerating the development of an open Metaverse. The Metaverse has been described as a combination of seven layers. The Sandbox includes the three outer layers: experiences, discovery, and the creator economy. These three layers are consumer-facing and serve as an on-ramp to the Metaverse.

Experiences in The Sandbox include opportunities to participate in limited edition drops, to buy and sell LAND, to personalize an avatar, to socialize with other members of the community, to attend virtual concerts and, of course, to play user-designed games.

Discovery in The Sandbox is interactive. A gallery of games and experiences can be explored by visiting different plots of LAND, each offering unique experiences. Users also can tap into a marketplace of digital assets – which are NFTs – to find creative partners and to buy and sell using SAND, the platform’s utility token. Players can explore communities, meet new people, and find a tribe to call their own. Brands that have staked LAND claims in The Sandbox range from The Walking Dead and Atari to Bored Ape Yacht Club and Snoop Dogg.

Creator economy is at the heart of The Sandbox. Unlike other successful gaming platforms, such as Minecraft and Roblox, The Sandbox gives creators 95% of the proceeds from the sale of NFTs on its marketplace. Moreover, the platform offers powerful creator tools – such as VoxEdit and GameMaker – for designing 3D assets and building unique games. 

We are extremely impressed by The Sandbox team and its vision. The founders – Arthur Madrid (CEO) and Sebastien Borget (COO) – bring decades of experience in gaming and user-generated content creation to this Web 3.0 initiative.

We’re not alone in seeing the potential for The Sandbox to monetize the metaverse. The Sandbox is already a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, which owns a controlling interest in the platform. Softbank took the lead on the recent $93 million Series B round, marking the company’s first investment in crypto assets. In addition to Samsung Next, some of the other investors in this round included Animoca Brands, Liberty City Ventures, and Galaxy Interactive.

The Sandbox makes the metaverse accessible to anyone, and it connects the physical and virtual worlds. The digital opportunities in this metaverse are translating into real dollars: for creators, for brands, and, yes, for investors.

Brandon Hoffman is an Investor at Samsung Next. Antonio Key, another Investor at Samsung Next, collaborated on this deal. Samsung Next's investment strategy is limited to its own views and does not reflect the vision or strategy of any other Samsung business unit, including, but not limited, to Samsung Electronics.

 If you’re a founder, we’d like to meet you.