Compare / Dapper Labs vs Niantic
AT A GLANCE
FUNDING HISTORY
Dapper Labs
Niantic
BUSINESS MODEL
Dapper Labs
Platform and marketplace — Dapper Labs builds NFT products and earns revenue from primary sales (minting new NFTs and selling them to users), marketplace transaction fees (5% on peer-to-peer trades), and licensing fees paid to sports leagues for using their IP. The company also built the Flow blockchain, which it controls and operates.
Revenue is heavily tied to NFT trading volume and new user acquisition. The licensing deals with NBA, NFL, UFC, and LaLiga give Dapper Labs exclusive rights to create digital collectibles from official content — a massive competitive moat when the market is hot, and a significant cost burden when the market cools.
Niantic
Free-to-play mobile gaming with in-app purchases. Players download Pokemon Go (and other Niantic games) for free and spend real money on in-game items: Poke Balls, incubators, raid passes, storage upgrades, and event tickets.
Pokemon Go generates roughly $700 million to $1 billion per year in player spending, even years after launch. Niantic also earns from sponsored locations — brands like Starbucks, McDonald's, and Sprint pay to have their stores appear as PokeStops or Gyms in the game, driving foot traffic.
The company licenses its AR platform (Lightship) to third-party developers. Live events (Pokemon Go Fest, Safari Zone) sell tickets at $15-$30 for in-person AR experiences in cities worldwide.
HOW THEY STARTED
Dapper Labs
Roham Gharegozlou was running a blockchain company called Axiom Zen when his team launched CryptoKitties in November 2017 — a game where users could buy, breed, and trade digital cats as NFTs on Ethereum. It went so viral that it congested the entire Ethereum network and accounted for 25% of all Ethereum traffic.
CryptoKitties proved that people would pay real money for unique digital assets, but it also proved that Ethereum couldn't handle consumer-scale applications. Gharegozlou spun out Dapper Labs in 2018 to solve both problems: build consumer NFT products AND build a blockchain (Flow) that could actually handle millions of users.
The NBA came calling in 2019, licensing their highlights for what became NBA Top Shot. When Top Shot launched in October 2020, a LeBron James dunk clip sold for $208,000.
By February 2021, Top Shot was processing $50 million in daily transactions. The NFT boom had arrived and Dapper Labs was at the center of it.
Niantic
John Hanke co-founded Keyhole, the company that made the satellite imagery software Google acquired and turned into Google Earth. He ran the Google Geo team (Maps, Earth, Street View) for years before starting Niantic as an internal Google startup in 2010.
The original idea was location-based gaming — using real-world geography as a game board. Niantic's first game, Ingress, launched in 2012 and built a cult following of players who walked around cities capturing virtual portals at real landmarks.
It was a proof of concept. Then The Pokemon Company and Nintendo came calling, and Pokemon Go happened.
The game launched in July 2016 and became the fastest mobile game to reach $1 billion in revenue — it did it in seven months. At its peak, 147 million people were playing simultaneously.
Central Park was overrun. People walked into traffic.
A guy in Japan caused a fatal car accident while playing. The cultural moment was unprecedented for a mobile game.
HOW THEY GREW
Dapper Labs
Licensing deals with major sports leagues gave Dapper Labs content that no competitor could replicate. NBA Top Shot specifically targeted sports fans, not crypto enthusiasts — a much larger addressable market.
The custodial wallet and credit card payments removed every crypto friction point, making it possible for someone with zero blockchain knowledge to buy an NFT in two minutes. Pack drops with limited supply created urgency and excitement similar to physical trading card releases.
Building the Flow blockchain gave Dapper Labs control over transaction costs and speed, avoiding Ethereum's congestion and gas fee problems. Celebrity involvement (Michael Jordan, Kevin Durant, Will Smith all invested) generated press coverage and credibility.
Niantic
Pokemon Go's success came from the perfect collision of nostalgia (Pokemon), technology (AR on smartphones), and timing (summer 2016, smartphones ubiquitous, nothing else like it existed). Post-launch, Niantic kept the game alive through continuous updates: new Pokemon generations, raid battles, community events, PvP battles, and seasonal content.
Live events in cities worldwide created community and press coverage. Sponsored locations turned the game into an advertising platform for retail brands.
The Lightship AR platform was designed to make Niantic the infrastructure layer for all location-based AR apps — essentially becoming the "AR operating system" that other developers build on. Acquisitions of 8th Wall (web AR) and Scaniverse (3D scanning) expanded the platform capabilities.
THE HARD PART
Dapper Labs
The NFT market collapsed. NBA Top Shot's monthly sales fell from $224 million in February 2021 to under $5 million by late 2022.
The $7.6 billion valuation from 2021 looks nearly impossible to justify with current revenue. Massive layoffs — the company cut over 50% of staff in multiple rounds through 2022 and 2023.
The Flow blockchain never achieved the developer adoption needed to become a major ecosystem — most NFT activity stayed on Ethereum and later Solana. Licensing deals with sports leagues require minimum guarantees regardless of volume, creating fixed costs that hurt when revenue drops.
Regulatory risk — the SEC has investigated whether NBA Top Shot moments are unregistered securities. And the core question: are digital sports highlights a lasting collectible category or were they a pandemic-era novelty?
Niantic
The one-hit-wonder problem. Harry Potter: Wizards Unite launched in 2019 and shut down in 2022.
Transformers: Heavy Metal never got traction. Pikmin Bloom barely registered.
Every game after Pokemon Go has struggled, and the market has noticed. The company laid off 25% of staff and cancelled NBA and Marvel AR games in 2023.
The Lightship platform hasn't attracted the developer ecosystem Niantic hoped for. The "real-world metaverse" pitch fell flat as the metaverse hype cycle collapsed.
Pokemon Go itself is a slowly declining revenue stream — still enormous, but past its peak. And the fundamental dependency: Niantic doesn't own Pokemon.
The Pokemon Company and Nintendo control the IP that generates 90%+ of Niantic's revenue. If that relationship changes, so does the entire business.
THE PRODUCTS
Dapper Labs
NBA Top Shot — officially licensed digital basketball highlights ("moments") sold as NFTs. Users buy packs, trade moments, and complete challenges.
NFL All Day — same concept applied to American football highlights. UFC Strike — officially licensed UFC fight moments as NFTs.
LaLiga Golazos — Spanish soccer league highlights as digital collectibles. Flow blockchain — Dapper Labs' own blockchain designed for consumer applications, used by NBA Top Shot and other products.
Dapper Wallet — custodial crypto wallet that works with credit cards, removing the complexity that makes normal crypto wallets unusable for regular people.
Niantic
Pokemon Go — the game that needs no introduction. Catch virtual Pokemon overlaid on the real world through your phone camera.
Still generates $700M+ annually seven years after launch. Ingress — the original location-based game with a dedicated player community and regular live events.
Monster Hunter Now — collaboration with Capcom, launched 2023. Peridot — original IP virtual pet game using AR.
Niantic Lightship — AR developer platform that provides mapping, visual positioning, and shared AR experiences for third-party apps. 8th Wall — web-based AR platform acquired by Niantic for developers who want AR without a native app.
WHO BACKED THEM
Dapper Labs
Investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue Management, GV (Google Ventures), Samsung, and celebrity investors including Michael Jordan, Kevin Durant, and Will Smith. The $7.6 billion valuation was reached in a 2021 funding round.
Niantic
Investors include Samsung, Spark Capital, IVP, aXiomatic Gaming, Coatue Management, and Temasek. Niantic was spun out of Google/Alphabet in 2015 with Google retaining an ownership stake.
Peak valuation of $8.7 billion in 2021.