Who is Yuga Labs?

By Josh Bobrowsky Edition 9

“Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge” - Winston Churchill

Who is Yuga Labs

Yuga Labs is a $4 billion dollar company founded in April of 2021 (less than 2 years old with $450 million in funding) and is the parent company to Bored Ape Yacht Club. The initial company was cofounded by 4 friends.¹

Above is a screenshot from a leaked pitch deck which may or may not have been a Yuga Labs official pitch deck. Founders have denied that this deck was created and used by them, but I will be referencing the deck (please be aware the deck itself is disputed but much of the information remains useful).

Assuming the above deck is correct you have 4 cofounders and 2 co-presidents so their organizational or leadership chart would likely look like this (assuming they are using normalized company structures).

At this point things feel relatively normal, a slightly larger founding team than most companies (2 founders is probably the most common in startup world) but nothing feels out of the ordinary here.

A New CEO

Sometime after founding the company but before raising $450 million in funding Nicole Muniz steps in as CEO (YouTube video of her below).

A slightly unusual play to have none of the 4 cofounders step up as CEO in an early stage company, this video was published less than 1 year after launch of Yuga Labs.

Nicole as CEO doesn’t feel like it raises any red flags, as the company is slightly unusual in the rapid success and maybe none of the 4 cofounders wanted to step in to that leadership role.

Here is how I would assume new company leadership structure looks assuming some of the pitch deck information is accurate.

Where I start to get confused

At this point there is 1 CEO, 2 co-presidents, 1 COO, and 3 executives with C level roles. I don’t know exactly how they all report to each other but the above is how I would think internal leadership may look. Again, this is just a guess but now it starts to feel a bit confusing who is in charge of what. At least from an outsiders perspective.

Yuga vs BAYC

Yuga Labs is the company which received $450 million in funding, it is the parent of BAYC, and often BAYC members will highlight that they are loyal to BAYC, but do not feel as much a part of the parent company Yuga Labs.

After $450 million in funding here is how I understand the structure of Yuga Labs (this may not be fully accurate).

Looking at the above chart, Yuga Labs owns Bored Apes, acquired Punks with funding and Meebits, and has 3 distinct lines of NFTs:

1. Bored Apes

   1. Mutant Apes

   2. Bored Ape Kennel Club

2. CryptoPunks

   1. Meebits

3. OtherSide Land

   1. Kodas

The Otherside

Yuga launched 100,000 NFTs as pieces of virtual land known as The Otherside in April of 2022. The goal appears to be creating a virtual universe which will serve as a hub for NFT fans and gamers.

Who is in charge of the Otherside?

This part is a bit unclear. From what I can gather Improbable.io is building the technology stack for Otherside led by their CEO Herman Narula.

Why is Improbable helping the Otherside?

This part again is not completely clear, but one of the investors in Yuga Labs is Animoca Brands a large investment company that is investing in almost everything Web 3.0 related.

Run by Yat Siu Animoca has invested in both Improbable and Yuga and it appears that Yat is using some of his working relationships to help accelerate Yuga.

While I believe this is a smart move to work with top tech talent rather than trying to build your own tech stack from scratch, this adds an additional layer of complexity and opacity with regards to who is in charge of what aspects of the Yuga Labs leaderships structure.

I am also left a bit curious as to how strong Yat’s role is within the company and who is leading which initiatives.

Adding another wrinkle into the mix of things, Yuga Labs just last month hired a Chief Gaming Officer Spencer Tucker to the executive team.

Ape Coin DAO

Ape Coin is a coin that was launched by Yuga Labs, and given to holders of Bored Apes and Mutant Apes. This DAO is kept legally separate from Yuga and BAYC as you can see with the dotted line in the image above. Specifically the DAO is set up as a Cayman entity.

That said, Ape Coin is in function deeply tied to Yuga and BAYC with a market cap of over $1.5 billion dollars.

Here is how the DAO is structured from my understanding. Interesting enough Yat sits on the DAO special council.

Board Members, Organization and Confusion

I am unsure of who are the exact board members of Yuga Labs but I do believe that Christopher Lyons of A16Z is on the board of directors along with Nicole Muniz. For a point of reference A16Z was the lead investor in the $450 million round of funding.

Taking a look at some Filings here is what I was able to find which appears to include Guy Oseary on the board as well as multiple founders

It is somewhat reasonable to assume that the group of investors would have wanted some control provisions to help manage their $450m investment, although I’m not sure exactly what those are.

At this point for a company with less than 2 years of operations there is a lot of confusion as to who is in charge of what aspects of the organization.

That said, the company may run very smoothly if you understand the inner workings of the organization which I do not, just outside looking in I’m left a bit lost.

As a small new update, Bored Ape Yacht Club has added a community council of 7 community members who will listen to what the community has to say.

But Wait Who is the CEO again?

While doing some research I notice that Nicole the CEO of Yuga may not still be the CEO, at least according to her Linkedin Bio. She is not stated as the CEO but rather as a Full Stack Executive. Maybe she is CEO and this is just a unique title or maybe there is a shift to someone new as a new CEO not entirely sure.

Conclusion

This in no way is meant to be a full understanding of the organizational structure of Yuga Labs or BAYC. This is simply how I believe the company may be organized from my research of publicly available information. I am sure that I may have mis-stated some things as I don’t fully know how Yuga operates.

1. Important to note that I may own Yuga assets and any NFTs I write about I may have a vested interested in their success. It is best to assume that I own an NFT and have some biases when I write on a subject