Yuga Labs announces restructuring in push towards 'Otherside' metaverse development

Yuga Labs, the team behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collection, has initiated a company restructuring to prioritize its core crypto business, which includes the Otherside metaverse project, said Greg Solano, the company’s co-founder, in a recent post on X.

As part of the restructuring process, Yuga Labs has cut down its workforce, though the company hasn’t specified the number of employees affected. Solano said Yuga Labs “lost its way” and needs to become a “smaller, more agile, and cryptonative team.”

“The creative-first spirit that drove this company from inception has been getting muddied by labyrinthine corporate processes. We work hard and we care but somehow end up with groups and committees. We plan more than we ship,” Solano stated.

He referenced Yuga Lab’s early success as “playing the game on easy mode” when creator royalties on NFTs were booming. But the easy mode was over. Solano said Yuga Labs is now “in hard mode” – it is “going from zero to one” with the community’s incredible support.

Solano also mentioned that Yuga Labs is spinning out 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 gamebuilder Faraway acquired the HV-MTL and LoTM brands.

This is not the first time Yuga Labs has undergone restructuring. Last October, the company announced a reorganization and layoffs focused on its US employees. At that time, Yuga Labs had around 100 employees worldwide.

Yuga Labs’ efforts to regain its footing

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 released a number of additional NFT collections, like 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 its various NFT collections.

However, BAYC’s luster began to fade following the crypto downturn in 2022-2023. The prices faltered, and some celebrity backers sold their NFTs.

According to data from NFT Price Floor, the floor price of one of these blue-chip NFTs dipped below 11 Ether earlier this month, reflecting an over 90% drop from the collection’s peak nearly two years ago.