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58th percentile
Founder Matrix
Most Complimentary
Credibility
Operator · 84th percentile
- Current founder as President and Co-Founder of Limit Break, an active blockchain gaming company.
- Y Combinator Winter 2008 alum via Machine Zone.
- Past founder as CTO and Co-Founder of Machine Zone, a mobile gaming company he co-founded in 2008.
- Machine Zone was co-founded alongside Gabriel Leydon and Mike Sherrill.
Founder score
- 97%Probability of being accurate (97%)Y Combinator Winter 2008 alum via Machine Zone.
- 95%Probability of being accurate (95%)Past founder as CTO and Co-Founder of Machine Zone, a mobile gaming company he co-founded in 2008.
- 92%Probability of being accurate (92%)Current founder as President and Co-Founder of Limit Break, an active blockchain gaming company.
- 90%Probability of being accurate (90%)Machine Zone was acquired by AppLovin, representing a distinct exit from a company he co-founded.
- 90%Probability of being accurate (90%)Machine Zone was co-founded alongside Gabriel Leydon and Mike Sherrill.
- 72%Probability of being accurate (72%)Raised approximately $463.3M in total venture capital across his founded companies — $200M for Limit Break and $263.3M for Machine Zone.
- 62%Probability of being accurate (62%)Identified Hugging Face account @halbertn matched to Halbert Nakagawa.
Investor score
No signal on this dimension.
What you likely need
Halbert is a seasoned serial founder with a major exit (Machine Zone, acquired by AppLovin) and a large active raise ($200M at Limit Break), giving him exceptional founder credibility in both mobile gaming and blockchain gaming. His primary opportunity now is to leverage his YC network and unicorn-founder status to accelerate Limit Break's growth and establish a public narrative around its blockchain gaming thesis. Building more visible thought leadership could also unlock LP and advisory opportunities given his track record.
Are these your current priorities?
We will tune and customize your Founder Festival experience to make sure you get invited to the events that would be most valuable to you.
- hiringActivate your YC W2008 alumni network to source senior engineering and product hires for Limit Break, as YC's talent pipeline is especially strong for technical roles.
- positioningPublish technical or strategic content about free-to-play mechanics applied to blockchain gaming to establish Limit Break's intellectual authority in the space.
- fundraisingLean into your Machine Zone unicorn-founder story in press and conference appearances to strengthen Limit Break's fundraising narrative for future rounds.
- introsGiven AppLovin's acquisition of Machine Zone, proactively build relationships with major gaming platform acquirers (e.g., Take-Two, EA, Tencent) who may be natural strategic partners or acquirers for Limit Break.
- tacticalExplore publishing AI/ML models or datasets on Hugging Face related to game AI or NFT analytics to build technical credibility in the AI-gaming intersection.
- introsFormalize your advisory work (currently advising Decentral/Lucia Protocol) into a structured angel portfolio to build an investor track record alongside your founder identity.
- wellbeingWith over 20 years of continuous high-intensity startup work across multiple companies, intentionally schedule recovery time and peer founder support to sustain long-term performance.