Uplandme, Inc. was founded in 2018 by serial entrepreneurs Dirk Lueth, Mani Honigstein, and Idan Zuckerman. As a globally distributed organisation, Uplandme, Inc. has headquarters in Silicon Valley, an R&D centre in Ukraine, and further team members across the US and Europe. Although the company is relatively young, it has grown significantly and garnered a loyal following of players.
In early 2018, Upland started with the idea of an NFT metaverse comparable to Monopoly, where players can buy and sell virtual properties based on the real world. The founders’ vision is to create a metaverse where people can play, socialise, and eventually earn money. Soon after, in July 2018, Uplandme, Inc. was incorporated. The founders then raised a seed round from angel investors and FinLab AG, and they began coding in December 2018. Several months later, in June 2019, the company invited Upland’s first users to try its closed beta, and the first-ever property was minted in the metaverse.
Upland’s open beta was finally released in January 2020, and it has been available cross-platform. San Francisco was the only city available during its initial release, but in October 2020, more locations were introduced. These include Brooklyn, Bakersfield, Chicago, Oakland, and Staten Island. In 2020, Upland also secured a partnership with Tilia Inc. to allow players to sell properties for USD.
In mid-2021, Upland had around 30,000 to 40,000 daily active users. This number is a 1600% increase from the platform’s 2,5000 daily active players in 2020. Thus, Upland is now one of the biggest blockchain games globally, and it’s still growing strong.