£500K in sponsorship, a $1M raise, and a Web3 IP roadmap in four months

A four-month dual-track engagement, delivered jointly with Foundation Ventures, took a global reality TV gaming format from "we want to do something in crypto" to locked pre-production, named talent interest, capital on the balance sheet, and a structural footprint inside the Solana ecosystem.

The client

The client was a global reality TV format built around competitive gaming. The founder came to Simplicity and Foundation Ventures with two things: a show ready to enter pre-production for the UK market, and the intent to launch a "crypto arm" without a defined strategy for what that meant. The team had no token thesis, no ecosystem footprint, no Web3 product roadmap, and no clear answer on whether crypto belonged in the business as a brand layer, a product layer, or at all.

The brief, once the ambiguity was stripped out, was straightforward: decide whether crypto belonged in the business, build the right structure if it did, and stand up the wider commercial machine for the UK launch in parallel.

The strategic call: no token

The most consequential decision of the engagement was made early and against the prevailing instinct. Most founders arriving from a content or entertainment background want a token, because every public crypto reference point they have encountered is token-led. We recommended against it.

The reasoning was specific. A token would have been a fundraise tool, not a product feature. Nothing in the show, the brand, or the planned IP roadmap actually required on-chain settlement, treasury logic, or a circulating asset. Launching one would have absorbed engineering, legal, and communications bandwidth the client needed for the show launch and the sponsorship cycle. It would also have introduced consumer-token regulatory exposure into a brand whose entire upside was mainstream entertainment partners. The opportunity cost was too high and the strategic justification was too thin.

The right Web3 surface was IP, not currency. Out of that decision came the second strategic deliverable: a digital-asset strategy card game, modelled on the format made successful by NFL Rivals and FIFA Rivals, in which collectible cards are owned on-chain and used in PVP play. The format gave the client a Web3 product whose mechanics matched its IP, an audience overlap with mainstream gaming rather than crypto-only, and a path to ownership and secondary-market economics without the brand risk of a public token. The game is now in early development, with the underlying mechanics, NFT design, and economic loop scoped.

The dual-track approach

From the strategic call onwards, we ran two parallel tracks. Web3 covered ecosystem positioning, the card-game design, and the founder's profile inside crypto-native venues. Web2 covered the commercial machine for the UK reality TV launch: sponsorship deck, sponsor outreach, talent for the judging panel, audition venues, and the investor deck.

Both tracks ran for the full four months. Foundation Ventures and Simplicity acted as equal co-delivery partners across the engagement.

Web3 execution

The card game gave the engagement a credible reason to be inside the Solana ecosystem. We built a dedicated outreach programme to plug the brand into the partners and infrastructure providers who could shape the IP roadmap.

Specific introductions included MonkeDAO (Solana's first community-owned NFT DAO, useful for community design templates and on-chain culture distribution); the Base team (cross-chain optionality and access to the wider Coinbase ecosystem); Superteam India (developer talent, regional distribution, and growth support inside one of the most active Solana developer communities globally); and additional Superteams across other geographies. The introductions were structured against the IP roadmap so each conversation had a clear reason to convert, rather than running purely as relationship-building.

The most notable named outcome from the ecosystem work was a partnership conversation with Joycon, focused on a custom console build aligned with the format. Several of the other introductions are now in active commercial dialogue with the client.

In parallel, we placed the founder on stage. Speaking slots included the Gamma Prime Tokenize Capital Summit, side events at Solana Breakpoint, and side events at Consensus Hong Kong. Each slot was chosen for compounding effect: it put the founder in front of allocators and ecosystem leads who could either invest, integrate, or refer. The speaking calendar produced direct inbound on both the card-game roadmap and the investor deck.

Web2 execution

The Web2 track is what most agencies operating in Web3 cannot deliver. For this engagement, it was the larger of the two revenue surfaces.

We designed and built the sponsorship deck from scratch, then ran a structured outreach programme to over 100 prospective sponsors, including Nike, UFC, and a long tail of consumer and gaming-adjacent brands. The deck was rebuilt twice in response to live feedback from the first wave of conversations, and outreach was sequenced to anchor early in the reality-TV calendar before competing formats locked sponsor budgets. The programme converted to roughly £500,000 in sponsorship revenue inside the four-month window.

In parallel, we ran the talent track for the UK judging panel. Outreach to top-tier UK and global talent generated named interest from Henry Cavill and KSI for the judging slate. Both are at the "interest expressed" stage rather than contracted, which is the appropriate stage for a pre-production reality TV format and a meaningful credibility signal for sponsors and broadcasters mid-cycle.

We then ran venue selection for the UK auditions, working through availability, capacity, brand fit, and logistics to lock the audition footprint that pre-production required.

The final Web2 deliverable was the investor deck, designed to sit above the sponsorship pipeline and frame the brand as a multi-revenue UK reality TV format with a Web3 IP layer, rather than a single-show commission. The deck closed a $1 million capital raise, with participation including Lionel Messi's Play Time venture fund. That round materially extended the client's runway through pre-production and into the launch cycle.

Outcomes

In four months of co-delivery with Foundation Ventures:

• £500,000 in sponsorship revenue closed through the deck and outreach programme, with Nike, UFC, and a long list of consumer-brand prospects engaged.

• $1 million capital raise closed off the back of the investor deck, with Lionel Messi's Play Time venture fund among the participants.

• Pre-production locked for the UK reality TV launch, with auditions complete, venues secured, and the broadcaster relationship attached.

• Named talent interest from Henry Cavill and KSI for the judging panel.

• A clear Web3 IP roadmap, anchored by a strategy card game in early development, with a defined position inside the Solana ecosystem rather than a token-led launch.

• An ecosystem footprint across MonkeDAO, the Base team, multiple Superteams (including Superteam India), and a named partnership conversation with Joycon for a custom console build.

• Founder visibility at the Gamma Prime Tokenize Capital Summit and side events during Solana Breakpoint and Consensus Hong Kong, producing direct commercial inbound.

What changed for the client

Four months earlier, the client had a show concept and a vague aspiration to "do something in crypto". Four months later, the brand had real capital on the balance sheet, real sponsorship revenue against the format, named talent interest at the judging panel, a defined Web3 product strategy that did not introduce token risk, and a structural foothold inside the Solana ecosystem.

The strategic clarity is the part that compounds. The decision not to launch a token cost the client nothing and saved the brand from a year of regulatory exposure and wasted engineering bandwidth. The decision to build IP into a card-game format gave the brand a Web3 product its audience can actually use. The dual-track Web2 and Web3 GTM gave the client a sponsorship base, a capital base, and an IP base in parallel rather than sequentially.

For founders building at the intersection of mainstream entertainment and Web3, that combination (saying no to the obvious crypto move, then building the right one alongside the wider commercial machine) is what the engagement was really about.