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Sandbox VR

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The profile

Sandbox VR, a chain of virtual-reality venues backed by celebrity investors, lost effectively all its revenue when its venues closed in 2020, its chief executive said. The parent company took a $754,363 PPP loan in April 2020; the business then cut 80 percent of its staff, and in August its U.S. subsidiaries filed for Chapter 11; three of those companies borrowed from PPP after the reorganization. All four loans were forgiven, and in 2026 the company said it had passed 80 locations.

  • Category: location-based entertainment
  • Pandemic layoffs: 80% of staff, including the whole engineering team (Layoffs.fyi and Protocol, May–June 2020)
  • Last updated: 2026-11-01

In the archive

Founders, executives and investors

Steve Zhao founded Sandbox VR in 2016 and was its CEO in 2020 and in 2026. Siqi Chen, an earlier CEO, left the company in 2020.

Road to VR reported in 2020 that Sandbox had raised more than $80 million, from Andreessen Horowitz, Alibaba, Floodgate Ventures, Stanford University, Triplepoint Capital and CRCM, with a round led by celebrities including Justin Timberlake, Katy Perry, Orlando Bloom and Will Smith. By March 2026 the company said it had raised more than $138 million. It named Andreessen Horowitz, Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund, Gobi Partners and Craft, with individual backers Timberlake, Perry, Kevin Durant and Smith.

Business before the pandemic

Sandbox ran rooms where groups of up to six played full-body VR games of about 20 minutes, in venues in North America and Asia, with in-house games and licensed ones such as a Star Trek: Discovery experience. Its U.S. companies told the bankruptcy court that before the COVID-19 crisis their locations "had seen strong traction as venues for corporate team-building events." The Wall Street Journal reported, as cited by Road to VR, that before the lockdowns the company was close to raising more than $50 million in equity to open about 20 new locations. That round was put on hold in March 2020.

What the pandemic did to the business

The venues closed, and in early June 2020 Zhao told Protocol that the company had effectively lost "100% of the revenue."

On August 13, 2020 eleven U.S. companies filed for Chapter 11 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Woodland Hills, California: Glostation USA, Inc., the name under which Sandbox operates in the United States, a holding company and nine Sandbox VR companies. Their joint-administration motion said they formed "a single business enterprise," each owned by "a single ultimate interest holder, Sandbox VR, Inc." Each was a borrower on a $4 million Silicon Valley Bank loan and an approximately $7 million loan from TriplePoint Capital, and many were parties to leases that Glostation guaranteed. All their employees worked for three of them: Sandbox VR San Mateo, LLC and Sandbox VR Pop-Up, LLC employed the retail staff, and Glostation the rest.

Glostation emerged from Chapter 11 in late November 2020 under a court-approved reorganization plan, and Sandbox said it had restructured its remaining debts. Bloomberg reported that the parent, Sandbox VR Inc, was funding the subsidiary, including a $13.6 million restructuring of secured debt.

Pandemic-relief role: four forgiven PPP loans

Sandbox VR, Inc. of Pleasanton, California, received a $754,363.32 PPP loan, approved April 30, 2020, with 11 jobs reported and the proceeds marked for payroll ($703,631) and mortgage interest ($50,732). The bankrupt subsidiary's bank statements, filed with the court in November 2020, are addressed to the same Pleasanton office, 4695 Chabot Drive.

On March 12, 2021, after the reorganization, three more PPP loans were approved at that address: $374,930.60 to Glostation USA Inc, with 16 jobs reported, and, to the two companies that had employed the retail staff, $183,166.40 to Sandbox VR Pop-Up LLC, with 44 jobs, and $58,085.12 to Sandbox VR San Mateo LLC, with 11. All four loans were forgiven with interest: the first in October 2021 for $765,259.35, the three 2021 loans in August 2022 for $380,325.43, $185,766.35 and $58,901.54.

Layoffs

In the week before May 8, 2020 Sandbox laid off its entire engineering team, and its CEO said he was laying himself off as well, according to Layoffs.fyi. Protocol then reported that 80 percent of the staff had been cut, leaving a crew of about 20. How Sandbox VR handled layoffs →

Where the company is now

In March 2026, marking its 10th anniversary, Sandbox VR said it had passed $300 million in lifetime sales and more than 80 locations in 13 countries on five continents, run through franchised and company-owned venues. It reported more than 5 million lifetime players and nearly 150,000 a month. Its Netflix titles include Squid Game Virtuals, which it said had passed $50 million in sales since 2023, and Stranger Things: Catalyst. It announced a 25-location rollout across the Middle East with franchise partner Apparel Group.

Sources

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