Immutable makes C-suite hires from Meta, Ava Labs

Immutable, a web3 gaming company, added three positions to its leadership team, all at the C-level.

The new additions are David Bicknell as chief financial officer and Devon Ferreira as chief marketing officer, Immutable said Wednesday. The Australia-based company also promoted its senior vice president Jason Suen to chief commercial officer. All three positions are firsts for Immutable and not replacements, Ferreira told The Block.

Ferreira joins Immutable from Ava Labs, the creator of the Avalanche blockchain, where he spearheaded Avalanche's marketing and brand development efforts. Bicknell, on the other hand, joined Immutable last August, and Suen was promoted to CCO last month, but the company chose to announce all three additions at once, said Ferreira. Bicknell previously worked for Meta, Twitter and several other companies. Suen worked for Shopify and other firms before Immutable.

In their new roles, Ferreira, Bicknell and Suen all plan to strengthen Immutable's ecosystem. "Our focus this year is to win web3 gaming and bring digital ownership to the world," said Ferreira. "We'll continue to augment our platform so that traditional developers can use it to build these products quickly and easily."

Immutable was founded in 2018 and offers a gaming-focused Ethereum Layer 2 network called ImmutableX. Several web3 games are built on ImmutableX, including Gods Unchained, Guild of Guardians, Illuvium, Embersword and Planet Quest. Immutable said it onboarded more games to its platform in the third quarter of 2022 than in its lifetime combined, going from just five deployed at the start of that last year to over 100 today.

The C-level hiring announcement comes shortly after Immutable reportedly laid off 11% of its staff late last month in the second round of job cuts. The current headcount of the company stands at 263, said Ferreira.

Raising funds?

The Australian Financial Review reported Tuesday that Immutable has been tapping private investors to buy its ImmutableX (IMX) tokens. The report said that rather than selling tokens it holds, Immutable has been pitching on behalf of the Digital Worlds Foundation (DWF), a non-profit based in the Cayman Islands set up to distribute tokens for Immutable's projects.

"Yes, there is an exciting raise in the works, although this process is not yet complete," Ferreira said. "Immutable is supporting DWF’s token sale to support investments in the IMX ecosystem."

"Importantly, the sale relates to tokens held by the Foundation, not Immutable, and all proceeds will go to the Foundation," he added.

He clarified that DWF is not part of the Immutable group, saying that it is a non-profit foundation and that its subsidiaries are independent entities — "one of which is the issuer of the IMX token to Immutable" — he added.

While Ferreira did not disclose the terms of the token sale by DWF, he said, "it was oversubscribed by >2X in the first 72 hours and is being led by a top 3 web3 VC."

As for Immutable, the company is in "great shape with more than four years of runway and $280 million+ of cash on its balance sheet," said Ferreira.

Immutable was valued at $2.5 billion in March last year when it raised $200 million in Series C funding.