Sébastien Borget is a French entrepreneur best known as the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of The Sandbox, a blockchain-based virtual world where players build, own, and monetize content using NFTs and the SAND token.
Who Is Sébastien Borget?
Sébastien Borget describes himself as a lifelong “tech geek” who developed an early passion for video games, playing on a Super Nintendo. He studied Computer Systems Networking and Telecommunications at Télécom SudParis, one of France’s leading engineering schools, earning his Bachelor of Science between 2004 and 2007. He went on to complete a Master’s degree in the same field at The Chinese University of Hong Kong around 2006, interning at Motorola Mobility during that period.
Before founding his own companies, Borget held early-career roles including Project Leader at 1-Click Media Networks, Chief Operations Officer at Wixi.com, and Technical Project Manager at ipercast. In 2007, he began working with his friend Arthur Madrid, and the pair went on to found three companies together, successfully exiting two of them before moving into mobile gaming.
For profiles of other builders shaping the Web3 industry, visit our crypto personalities page.
Sébastien Borget’s Career and Contributions
In 2011, Borget and Madrid founded Pixowl, a mobile gaming studio behind family titles including Snoopy’s Town Tale, The Addams Family Mystery, and Garfield. Pixowl hired a developer named Pablo Iglesias, known as Onimatrix, who had a personal project called The Sandbox with roughly 800,000 views and several thousand user-built worlds.
Pixowl adapted the concept for mobile and launched a public beta in March 2012. A follow-up, The Sandbox Evolution, launched in 2016 and grew to 40 million downloads and 70 million player creations, though Pixowl struggled to share revenue with creators due to restrictions on the App Store and Google Play.
Around this time, Borget became interested in blockchain technology and began mining Bitcoin at home. He has said he was drawn to CryptoKitties, the early blockchain game, because players bought NFT cats from each other on an external marketplace using cryptocurrency rather than buying directly from the game company with a credit card. That insight led Borget and Madrid to rebuild The Sandbox as a decentralized, blockchain-based 3D world with user-generated NFTs and its own token.
After pitching to more than 100 investors, Pixowl was acquired by Animoca Brands in 2018 for $4.8 million, along with shares in Animoca. The Sandbox was rebuilt for web browsers with blockchain integration, and an Alpha version was released to the public in November 2023. The Sandbox raised $3.6 million from Hashed and $2 million from Square Enix and B Cryptos in 2019, then $93 million in a November 2021 round led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, and $20 million in June 2024 at a $1 billion valuation cap led by Kingsway Capital and Animoca Brands. The company has also acquired other firms, including Cualit in May 2022 and Svipe in February 2023.
The Sandbox has grown to more than 6.3 million wallet users, facilitated the sale of over 350,000 NFTs, and partnered with more than 200 brands, including The Walking Dead, Snoop Dogg’s Snoopverse, HSBC, and the British Museum. In May 2024, the platform launched a DAO allowing SAND and LAND token holders to vote on platform proposals every other week.
Beyond The Sandbox, Borget has served as President of the Blockchain Game Alliance since 2020, a non-profit coalition of roughly 250 companies advocating for blockchain adoption in gaming. He co-founded ArtVerse, a Paris-based art gallery bridging physical and digital art, in 2024.
As an angel investor, Tracxn lists Borget as having a portfolio of 20 companies across the blockchain and technology sectors, with notable positions in Cross The Ages and CryptoSlam, and a Series A investment in VOYA Games in May 2025. His one Tracxn-listed portfolio exit is Sandstorm, an NFT branding platform acquired in April 2025.
Sébastien Borget’s Views and Positions
Speaking at the Upbit Developer Conference in Busan in 2022, Borget outlined his vision for the metaverse as a space where people will eventually work, learn, and socialize much as they do in the physical world.
He pointed to activities already happening on The Sandbox, including art exhibitions, museum visits, and at least one couple holding their wedding on the platform. He has predicted that the metaverse’s growth will create millions of jobs across roles, including architects, avatar fashion designers, and community managers, and has pushed for interoperability that would allow NFTs from other platforms to function as avatars within The Sandbox.
Readers new to how NFTs work within platforms like this one can find the basics in our guide on Web3 NFT wallets for collectors.
Sébastien Borget’s Net Worth in 2026
Sebastien Borget’s net worth was estimated at $100 million, though this is only an estimate since Borget rarely discloses his finances publicly.
The bulk of his wealth is tied to his co-ownership stake in The Sandbox, which carried a $1 billion valuation as of its June 2024 funding round. His earlier exit from Pixowl, which was sold to Animoca Brands for $4.8 million in 2018, along with an equity stake in Animoca, also contributed to his financial position ahead of The Sandbox’s growth.
Borget’s personal cryptocurrency and NFT holdings are also not publicly disclosed, though he has shared some purchases on social media, including NFTs described as Kaijus, an NFT wine bottle, Gucci digital assets, and a Cordon Bleu Cognac bottle NFT.
Frequently Asked Questions
Need a refresher? Here are the questions readers most often ask about Sébastien Borget.
Who is Sébastien Borget?
Sébastien Borget is a French entrepreneur and the co-founder and COO of The Sandbox, a blockchain-based virtual world built around NFTs and the SAND token. He previously co-founded Pixowl, a mobile gaming studio that developed the original version of The Sandbox before it became a blockchain platform.
What is Sébastien Borget’s net worth?
Sebastien Borget’s net worth was estimated at $100 million. No updated figure for 2026 has been published, and Borget does not publicly disclose his personal finances. Most of his wealth is believed to come from his ownership stake in The Sandbox.
What is The Sandbox?
The Sandbox is a blockchain-based virtual world where players build, own, and monetize user-generated content as NFTs, using digital land parcels called LAND and a utility token called SAND. The platform grew out of a mobile game originally developed by Pixowl and was rebuilt as a decentralized, blockchain-based world starting in 2018.
What other roles does Sébastien Borget hold?
Beyond The Sandbox, Borget has served as President of the Blockchain Game Alliance since 2020, a coalition of roughly 250 gaming and blockchain companies. He also co-founded ArtVerse, a Paris-based gallery connecting physical and digital art, in 2024, and is an active angel investor with a portfolio of 20 companies.
How did Sébastien Borget get into blockchain gaming?
Borget became interested in blockchain after discovering CryptoKitties, an early blockchain game where players traded NFT cats on an external marketplace using cryptocurrency. That experience led him and co-founder Arthur Madrid to rebuild their mobile game, The Sandbox, as a decentralized platform with user-generated NFTs, following Pixowl’s 2018 acquisition by Animoca Brands.
