A Rising Japanese Company Fighting with Characters for the World.

“Web3 is Over?”
Once a buzzword that dominated the media almost daily, “Web3” has all but disappeared from the conversation since the emergence of LLMs in 2023.
About three years ago, during our previous financing round, I wrote a note titled “I Hate Money-Driven Web3” as a warning against the overheated NFT boom and the broader Web3 industry. Unfortunately, the very concerns I raised back then have now become a reality.
Recently, the Nikkei reported that “NFT trading volume has declined by 80% from its peak,” and many people may feel that “Web3 is over,” “it has lost momentum,” or “it was too early.”
Source: https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUB23C6H0T20C25A4000000/
Attention and money alike have shifted away from Web3 and toward AI. And yet, in the midst of this societal shift, Gaudiy—having staked our entire existence on Web3—has successfully raised 10 billion yen in the 1st close of our Pre-Series C round.
Gaudiy raises 10 billion yen in Pre-Series C financing (Press release, May 8, 2025, 11:33 JST)
Why was a Web3 startup able to achieve such a significant financing round under current market conditions? I imagine many are wondering the same thing.
That’s why, in this note, I’d like to share Gaudiy’s vision, current status, and strategies for realizing our future—while reflecting on society’s trajectory in light of technologies such as AI and Web3.
It’s a long read, but I hope it serves as a small contribution to your own reflections on what the next society might look like. 🙇‍♂️
Table of Contents
Every technology has both pros and cons
Can humanity truly become happier through AI?
Why I still feel romance in Web3
How global thought leaders envision “the next society”
How fandoms will transform society
Using technology “for good” in the entertainment domain
Toward realizing the “Fan Nation”
Network Union / Online Public Sphere
Network Archipelago / O2O
Network State / Social Connect
Every Technology Has Pros and Cons
I love technology. The evolution of AI excites me every day. But when new technology emerges, some people feel the same excitement I do, while others feel fear or anxiety.
So before diving into AI and Web3, allow me to take a step back and speak about “technology” itself.
I believe the essence of technology lies in “control and expansion.”
Electricity, for example, was originally a natural phenomenon like lightning and static. Technology allowed humans to control it and put it to use. Similarly, the internet allowed us to control vast amounts of data via radio waves and communication protocols, thereby expanding human capacity to exchange information across time and space.
This concept of “control and expansion” resonates with the philosophy of Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí, after whom our company is named.
In technology as well, there is no “creation” by humans per se—rather, it is about taking what exists in nature, learning to control it, and thus expanding human capability and society’s potential.
But we must remember: every technology brings both benefits and harms.
Cars enable easier travel but also cause accidents. Social media creates new communities but also fuels harassment.
Why? Because how technology is used is ultimately determined by people.
And especially when new technology first appears, social norms and rules often lag behind. Various uses are tested—some that drive progress, and others that create new social problems.
The same holds for Web3. On one hand, it has potential to reduce international remittance costs or address poverty; on the other, it has fueled crypto scams and speculative NFT projects. That “money-driven” aspect is something I’ve always disliked.
In short: any technology can be used in ways that are good for some and bad for others. The crucial question is: what kind of society do we want, and how will we use technology to get there?
Can Humanity Become Happier with AI?
AI is an extraordinary technology, expanding human intelligence to boost productivity and creativity.
At Gaudiy, we quickly established an AI team right after Stanford and Google published their “Generative Agents” paper in April 2023. We implemented it into our community service and ran proof-of-concept experiments at one of the world’s largest idol festivals.
Since then, our AI team has grown to around 10 members, working on everything from AI Agents to image generation and academic papers. We also see company-wide LLM utilization as essential to our business and organizational strategy.
But I’m not without concerns. AI risks amplifying meritocracy and widening social inequality.
For example, highly skilled white-collar workers may earn even higher incomes thanks to AI, while corporations adopting AI may further increase capital returns—leading to a world of deepened inequality, as even the IMF has warned.
Yet AI itself isn’t “bad.” Rather, it is the flaws of financial capitalism that get magnified when AI is layered on top.
I fear this could eventually create divides between the “haves” and “have-nots,” sparking unrest akin to the French Revolution. Perhaps that sounds alarmist, but it’s a real concern for me.
Why I Still Believe in Web3
In this chaotic era, filled with uncertainty, I can’t help but feel a sense of romance in Web3.
Why? Because only the philosophy and technology of Web3—its ethos of collaborative value creation and smooth value distribution via blockchain—can counterbalance the runaway inequality driven by financial capitalism and AI.
Web3 enables people to gather around what they find meaningful, co-create value, and be fairly rewarded for their contributions. It liberates us from society’s single, rigid yardstick of value (income, pedigree, appearance, etc.) and allows diverse value systems to coexist.
In this sense, Web3 shifts society from capitalism to value-ism.
As Harvard’s 80-year study has shown, human happiness is rooted in supportive, like-minded communities. I believe Web3’s vision can indeed increase humanity’s overall happiness.
But this doesn’t mean AI is unnecessary. On the contrary, the ideal future is one where Web3 and AI work together:
AI democratizes intelligence but cannot govern social systems.
Web3 democratizes trust and can form the backbone of those systems.
Combined, they can build better societies.
This is the idea behind Plurality, proposed by Audrey Tang and Glen Weyl: leveraging technology to enable both depth of collaboration and breadth of diversity in collective communication.
Plurality, alongside our own vision of the “Fan Nation,” represents the next societal model we aim to realize.
Fandom as a Force for Societal Transformation
Why did we choose to begin with entertainment?
Because entertainment is inherently global and naturally builds passionate communities—fandoms.
Fandoms already wield massive social and even political influence, as seen with BTS’s ARMY. Their ability to create shared culture, rules, and values makes them powerful engines of social transformation.
Thus, Gaudiy is pursuing its “Fan Nation” vision through entertainment, where fandoms can serve as the fastest pathway to large-scale social change.
That is why we partner with major IPs, why we built Gaudiy Fanlink, and why we’ve acquired MyAnimeList, with 20M registered members (99% overseas), to accelerate the creation of a global fandom economy.
Toward the “Fan Nation”
With new investors such as Sony, Bandai Namco, Kodansha, Shueisha, Shogakukan, Akatsuki, Anime Times, and Bushiroad, our base within the entertainment ecosystem has grown stronger.
Our strategy follows the three phases outlined by Balaji Srinivasan in The Network State:
Network Union – Online communities with shared vision and collective action.
Network Archipelago – Hybrid communities spanning online and offline “territories.”
Network State – An online nation with diplomatic recognition.
Step by step, we are building toward this vision—starting with entertainment, and eventually expanding into other fields.
It’s an ambitious, perhaps daunting vision. But just like Gaudí’s Sagrada Família, even if we ourselves don’t finish it, we hope to set it in motion so that someone will.
That’s how serious we are about co-creating this future.
Afterword
Gaudiy recently celebrated its 7th anniversary. We’ve grown to over 100 employees across six group companies worldwide.
This year’s company-wide theme is: “Probably a Chance.” It captures the uncertainty of our times, while reflecting Gaudiy’s unique spirit.
Outsiders may see our 10 billion yen financing and partnerships with major publishers and entertainment firms as smooth sailing. But the reality is—we’re still immature, still unstable.
And yet, when I look back, I see that we are steadily moving closer to our vision.
We are under no illusion about our lack of capability. Still, the only way forward is to persist—remaining sincere to IPs, to fans, and to technology—in Gaudiy’s own way.
Through the realization of the “Fan Nation,” we want to build a society that leaves no one behind, increasing the total amount of happiness in the world.
👉 Would you like me to also create a shortened “executive summary” version in English (about 1/5 of this length) that could work for press releases or investor updates?

fro, https://gaudiy.com yuyaishikawa