Nathan Lands
The recordBuilt, backed, advised

What I built, and who I backed

Each company, and what I did there. For how it all fits together, read the full story.

Built

Companies I started
Co-founder and CEO2010 to 2012San Francisco

Gamify

An early gamification platform. We helped companies add game mechanics to their products. I had always seen the world through the lens of gaming, and I believed that one day all work would look like play.

  • Coined the word gamify. The day we launched, Google had no results for it.
  • Founded the company with J.R. Bédard, who had been the first engineer at Scribd.
  • Raised the seed money from Dan Dodge, the founder of QNX.
  • Put the word in front of the press, starting with Dean Takahashi of VentureBeat at an E3 party.
  • Built Gamification.org into the leading resource on the subject, in more than 22 languages.

Outcome Badgeville, backed by Andreessen Horowitz, acquired Gamification.org in 2012.

A roadside billboard in San Francisco reading: Wanted, Gamify Experts, Gamify.com
San Francisco, 2012. The Gamify billboard.
Co-founder and CEO2013 to 2019San Francisco

Binded

One company with three chapters, all built on the blockchain: QuickCoin, then Blockai, then Binded. As Binded it helped more than 10,000 artists protect their copyrights.

  • QuickCoin: co-created the first social Bitcoin wallet, which let anyone send bitcoin to their friends on Facebook. It was the #2 product of the day on Product Hunt and landed me in the book The Age of Cryptocurrency.
  • Blockai: launched a blockchain browser, then turned it into a way for artists to register their work.
  • Binded: made copyright simple. We recorded proof of authorship on the blockchain, then scanned the web to show artists where their work was being used.
  • Ranked #2 product of the day on Product Hunt twice.
  • Spoke at the Library of Congress about the future of copyright.

Outcome Pixsy acquired Binded in 2019.

Six panellists seated at a long table beside a speaker at a lectern, an American flag behind them. One name card reads Nathan Lands.
The future of copyright. On a government panel, fourth from the left.
Co-founder2008 to 2010Tampa Bay, Florida

GameStreamer

A cloud gaming platform. My original idea was a better Steam. I didn't think it was good for the game industry that the leading distribution platform was also a leading game developer.

  • Negotiated and drafted every contract with game publishers, including THQ, Ubisoft and other major studios.
  • Signed Jonathan Blow, the creator of Braid, and a licensing deal with IceFrog, the developer behind DotA.
  • Acquired our streaming technology from the Phantom, the game console that never shipped.
  • Took a two-floor booth to E3 in 2010.
  • Competed with Gaikai, which had raised $30M, and OnLive, which had raised $110M.

Outcome Raised more than $10M. Sold in 2010.

The two-storey GameStreamer booth on the show floor at E3 2010, with a staircase up to a meeting deck
E3, 2010. The GameStreamer booth, two floors of it.
Founder2019 to 2020San Francisco and New Zealand

Lore Pictures

A crypto-funded film studio, founded with Barrie Osborne, the producer of The Lord of the Rings and The Matrix. Bill Tai introduced us and brought Barrie to my office in Japantown.

  • Spent more than a year with Barrie building a slate of films and working out how to fund them.
  • Set out to raise $100M for the slate.
  • Explored buying small studios and film libraries.
  • Spent time on the set of Mulan.
  • Prototyped a platform for writers and artists to develop film concepts together.

Outcome COVID arrived before we made a film. The studio is why I bought Lore.com.

The Lore Pictures team page, with Barrie Osborne as president and Nathan Lands as CEO
Lore Pictures. The founding team, with producer Barrie Osborne as president.
FounderTampa Bay, Florida

Tour de Home

My first company after Taiwan: an interactive home search, with a kiosk in a Tampa mall and advertising from major real estate developers.

  • Oversaw 140 properties.
  • When the market collapsed, I kept a client's apartment building full by keeping his listings at the top of Craigslist, posting and removing them automatically at exactly the right times.

Outcome Closed after the real estate collapse.

Backed

Companies I invested in

I've been investing the whole time: Nvidia as a teenager, bitcoin early, and now the companies I think America needs. My part is usually the same: the story, the launch, and getting the right people in the room.

Investor

Factory

Agent-native software development. I helped launch it, then invested.

  • Worked with the founder, Matan Grinberg, on the story and the go-to-market for the launch.
  • Helped produce Factory's episode of The Next Wave from start to finish. It became the show's most-watched.
The Next Wave on YouTube: episode artwork reading Clone a SaaS in 15 minutes
The Next Wave. The Factory episode, with founder Matan Grinberg.
Investor

Erebor

A nationally chartered bank for American innovation, founded by Palmer Luckey.

Investor

SF Compute

A market for GPU clusters. Buy large-scale compute, resell what you don't use.

Investor

Vanguard Defense

Mission-ready data for autonomous defense systems, labeled by U.S. veterans.

Scout

a16z

Anjney Midha invited me to become an a16z Scout. I focus on American Dynamism and infrastructure.

Advised

People and projects I helped
Consultant2010

Gaikai

Cloud gaming, founded by David Perry, the creator of Earthworm Jim. Gaikai had been a rival of GameStreamer. I left to help David as a consultant.

  • Helped David with the early strategy for the company.
  • Helped recruit his chief operating officer, Nanea Reeves, a former Electronic Arts executive.
  • Introduced the company to most of the major game publishers.

Outcome Sony acquired Gaikai for $380M in 2012.

Co-organizerFebruary 2014San Francisco

Bitcoin Fair

Marshall Hayner and I put on the first Bitcoin Fair in San Francisco. It was one of the first events in the city where you could buy food and drinks with bitcoin, and the room was too full to move in.

Two men gesturing toward a hand-painted window sign that reads Bitcoin Fair, San Francisco, 1st Fair
San Francisco, February 6, 2014. Outside the first Bitcoin Fair, with Marshall Hayner, left.
Mentor

Thiel Fellowship

I mentored the second class of the Thiel Foundation's 20 Under 20 fellowship, one of its best-known years.

Early help2010

Overwolf

In the very early days I connected the team to the major game developers in California.

Media

What I made in public
Co-host2024 to 2026

The Next Wave

HubSpot's AI podcast, which I created and hosted with Matt Wolfe.

  • Ran for more than two years and had over 1.5 million plays.
  • Guests included Demis Hassabis of Google DeepMind, Mustafa Suleyman of Microsoft AI, Aravind Srinivas of Perplexity and Logan Kilpatrick.
  • Took the show to the main stage at INBOUND.
The Next Wave on YouTube: three people in armchairs on a conference stage
INBOUND main stage. The Next Wave with Zeynep Inanoglu, CMO of Atlassian.
FounderKyoto, Japan

Lore Brief

A newsletter on AI/SI that peaked at 47,000 subscribers, with readers inside OpenAI, NVIDIA and Sequoia.

Writer

@NathanLands

About 75,000 followers on X. One post, about the USA and Japan, passed 100 million views. Elon Musk has shared my posts many times, and President Trump shared one.