What We’ve Learned From The Yuga Labs Pitch Deck Leak

A leaked pitch deck from Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) founders Yuga Labs has been making the rounds over the past week. The existence of the pitch deck first garnered attention on Twitter last week. The document itself then came to light via various news outlets and in a Twitter thread from the account @LeonidasNFT.

The success of BAYC makes Yuga Labs a Web3 powerhouse

Firstly, the first third of the 90-page pitch deck notes the wild success the BAYC and Yuga Labs as a whole have seen over the past 10 months. It also speaks on the fundamentals of the company: its team and goals.

To be sure, none of the information around Yuga’s success will come as a shock to anyone who has been following the NFT space over the past year. Nevertheless, seeing some of the company’s accomplishments spelled out in this way certainly makes them stand out.

For example, the pitch deck places the BAYC at the center of the rapidly-evolving NFT space. A claim that Yuga then backs up with an impressive statistic: “The BAYC collections alone account for approximately 10% of the volume on OpenSea.” Given OpenSea’s position as the biggest NFT marketplace so far by total sales volume, it’s fair to say that the statement about BAYC’s relevance is valid.

Yuga Labs boasts vast financial resources and a top-notch team

By the same token, the pitch deck includes some jaw-dropping numbers when it comes to Yuga Labs’ revenue. Both what it made in 2021, and what it projects to make in 2022.

As the above image shows, Yuga’s net revenue percentage in 2021 was a whopping 92.4%. In other words, its operational costs are tiny in comparison to the huge amounts that it brought in. Even with its expenses nearly rising by a factor of 20 in 2022, it still is projecting net revenue of nearly $500 million this year.

Not to mention that the team handling these resources is as good as it gets. For example, media mogul Guy Oseary is a minority partner of Yuga Labs. The legendary manager will bring a wealth of experience to Yuga Labs’ disposal.

By the same token, Yuga also lists Patrick Ehrlund as its Chief Creative Officer and minority partner. The brand guru has worked with names like Google, HBO, and Kanye West. Thus, it’s safe to say that the future of Yuga Labs is in capable hands.

Yuga Labs pitch deck outlines upcoming metaverse moves

Overall, the pitch deck outlines what Yuga Labs sees as its main priority moving forward. Namely, the fact that Yuga is getting ready to take over the metaverse.

To that end, Yuga Labs doesn’t pull any punches about what it thinks of current metaverse offerings. Aside from calling them underwhelming”, it also states that “Today’s metaverses are trying to make something new, but they’re really just creating something boring.”

On the other hand, the pitch deck also covers another point that many people have pointed to as a potential stumbling block of the metaverse landscape at present. Specifically, the fact that the many metaverse platforms that are out are distinct and somewhat disconnected. Not only from each other but also from people’s Web3 personas. Yuga Labs sums up the problem thus:

“And isn’t the whole point of a metaverse to have one virtual world that all of humanity is tied to? If everyone is building their own how does that work?”

Evidently, Yuga Labs plans to solve these issues with its very own metaverse, or MetaRPG (meta role-playing game). You can read more about that here. What’s more, the pitch deck also contains information about the massive, public land sale that will launch the Yuga Labs metaverse.

Significantly, the information in the pitch deck seems to connect to the trailer for “Otherside”, which we can safely assume is the name of its upcoming MetaRPG.

Yuga Labs founder Gargamel dismissed the “outdated” pitch deck as inaccurate

As tends to happen with any leak of this nature, Yuga Labs was quick to distance itself from the pitch deck. Indeed, founder and co-president Gargamel dismissed the document in a message in the BAYC Discord server (shown above). According to him, the information in it is either outdated or subject to change. Interestingly, he also notes that neither he nor Gordon Goner (Yuga co-founder) ever even saw the leaked pitch deck.

That would imply that the pitch deck could’ve been an early draft that the Yuga co-founders never signed off on. If so, one would expect the document that Yuga Labs shares with potential partners to be different.

Time will tell how much of the leaked pitch deck turns out to be correct. With all that said, the official “Otherside” trailer certainly seems to line up with many details from the pitch deck.