On 27 July 2026, Spatial sunsets its Free and Pro creator tiers and ends 3D‑world hosting for them. Creators have been told to download their assets before that date — anything left is deleted. An ecosystem accumulated over nine years is about to be stranded.
Project Sanctuary is a new, independent entity created specifically for this opportunity — backed by Cerulean Circle GmbH as technology partner and incubator, and powered by the 🌿 Ecoverse runtime, but incorporated and capitalized as its own company so investor equity sits in a clean vehicle. It does three things in one motion: (1) migrates stranded creators and their composed worlds, with their consent, onto Ecoverse, a performance‑proven, web‑native metaverse; (2) issues each owner a Web4ID self‑sovereign identity so their ownership is cryptographic, portable, and theirs forever; and (3) assembles the result into the first identity‑protected digital‑art community at scale — a community that can never be wiped out by a single platform's shutdown again.
Sources: Spatial creator‑platform sunset notice & asset‑deletion deadline (spatial.io blog, 2026); UploadVR coverage; cumulative figures from Spatial's own platform marketing. Concurrency demonstrated at the Pace Gallery / Tyler Hobbs opening (recorded footage available in diligence).
Spatial has confirmed it will sunset its Free and Pro tiers and discontinue 3D‑world hosting for them on 27 July 2026, while continuing to serve enterprise customers. Creators must export their assets before that date or lose them permanently.VERIFIED
The critical, under‑appreciated detail: owners may be able to download raw asset files, but they lose the composition — the assembled, multiplayer, hosted world that gave the work meaning and audience. Restoring that composed, living experience is exactly what a destination platform provides and what individual file export cannot.
A migration package moves creators' standardized 3D assets (glTF/GLB, USDZ, FBX and texture maps) and rebuilds the composed experience on Ecoverse before the deadline — on an opt‑in, owner‑consented basis.
Each owner receives a Web4ID self‑sovereign identity binding their IP to a cryptographic, portable, owner‑controlled title — protection that persists across platforms, vendors and devices.
Migrated creators join a curated, identity‑protected digital‑art community with ongoing hosting, discovery, multiplayer and runtime — a permanent home, not a one‑time rescue.
The value to the asset owner is not "download files you already own." It is ownership you can prove and carry anywhere, plus a living runtime for work that would otherwise go dark. That is the difference between a backup and a sanctuary.
The migration's durable differentiator is identity. Marcel Donges is a software architect with a 30‑year track record across the Internet of Things, Internet of Services, Industry 4.0 and large‑scale systems (including Chief Architect, Smart Cities Stuttgart; Borland alumnus). He is the creator of the Web4x framework and the WODA / ONCE reference implementation, publicly presented at OW2con, Paris, 2019 — Europe's largest open‑source community.VERIFIED He leads Web4ID, a reusable self‑sovereign identity system built on Web4x — with identity partners including DAL and tenbeo (from the Heartspaces initiative).SOURCED
Donges' Web4x framework is featured and discussed as a third‑party subject in Krista Kim's book Human Sovereignty (2026), which traces a consistent thesis of data ownership and trust and treats Web4x and the EU's own legislative direction as converging toward "data sovereignty as a default right."SOURCED
Ecoverse, led by metaverse & XR pioneer Philip van Nedervelde (23+ years XR; founder of award‑winning studio E‑SPACES), is a web‑native metaverse built on modern WebXR / Babylon.js — architected for fast, download‑free, multi‑user experiences and positioned as a lighter alternative to heavyweight engines.SOURCED
On 11 July 2023 the European Commission adopted a formal strategy to lead on Web 4.0 and virtual worlds, framing it as the next transition after Web 3.0 and emphasising open, interoperable, rights‑respecting virtual environments — directly aligned with an ownership‑first, identity‑anchored approach.VERIFIED
Two revenue lines: a one‑time migration + ownership package (~$1,500) and a recurring membership/runtime subscription (~$500/yr). Migration fees are the customer‑acquisition engine; the platform's recurring economics are the return driver.
Acquiring a pre‑engaged base via a deadline‑driven offer, well below typical metaverse/gaming paid‑channel CAC of ~$20–$100+.
A hard deadline, an emotional loss (their composed world), and a unique offer no incumbent matches: provable, portable ownership plus a live runtime.
Platform‑shutdown research consistently shows that full migration to a single named destination is a minority of the engaged community (studies of displaced communities cluster around ~4–20%, highest for the most‑attached users). We therefore model paying migration against an engaged base of ~50k–150k, not the 3M cumulative figure.
| Scenario | Paying migrants | One‑time ($1,500) | Recurring ($500/yr) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | 3,000 | $4.5M | $1.5M / yr |
| Base case | 7,500 | $11.25M | $3.75M / yr |
| Upside | 20,000 | $30.0M | $10.0M / yr |
| Headline ceiling* | 1,000,000 | $1.5B | $500M / yr |
Recurring figures are pre‑churn. *The headline‑ceiling row is a theoretical maximum shown for completeness only; it is not a forecast and the raise is not predicated on it. The base case is the figure management actually underwrites.
The raise is sized to what the capital must do across two phases: a ~7‑week migration sprint to 27 July 2026 (finish the migration software, run the marketing push, issue Web4ID title, and host migrated worlds at scale), followed by a ~14‑month runway to convert rescued creators into a sustainable recurring‑subscription community. Entity formation runs in parallel from day one. A clean new entity cherry‑picks the proven pieces — Ecoverse runtime, Web4ID identity, and the Spatial migration opportunity — built from scratch, isolating investor equity from unrelated history.
| Use of funds | % | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Migration software finalization & engineering | 30% | $1,500,000 |
| Marketing push to Spatial subscribers (deadline‑boxed) | 25% | $1,250,000 |
| Platform / runtime + hosting & parallel‑instance scaling | 18% | $900,000 |
| Web4ID identity issuance at scale | 12% | $600,000 |
| Entity setup, legal, IP & ownership agreements | 8% | $400,000 |
| Operating reserve / contingency | 7% | $350,000 |
| Total | 100% | $5,000,000 |
*Valuation ($50M post‑money) is a proposed opening position, subject to negotiation and diligence. The investor becomes a shareholder in the new entity, with the Ecoverse runtime, Web4ID identity layer and migration opportunity contributed under formal agreement.
Today is 9 June 2026. Spatial deletes unmigrated creator worlds on 27 July 2026 — roughly 7 weeks. There is no slow ramp: the migration is a sprint that begins immediately, entity formation runs in parallel (as fast as notaries and registries allow), and the months after the sunset are dedicated to retention and standing up the subscription business that sustains the community.
| Risk | Mitigant |
|---|---|
| Conversion below base case. Active base may be smaller / less attached than modeled. | Raise sized to a focused plan, not to high conversion; reserve included; recurring platform value beyond migration. |
| "Just a download." Standardized formats mean owners can export files themselves, free. | We sell composition + runtime + provable ownership, not file export; identity layer is the moat, not the file move. |
| Ownership / ToS exposure. Migrating others' assets touches Spatial terms and creator rights. | Opt‑in, owner‑consented migration under formal agreements; owners retain their content; legal line‑itemed in use of funds. |
| Concurrency / scaling cost. ~100 users/instance implies many parallel instances at scale. | Web‑native architecture engineered for parallel instances; hosting budgeted; demonstrated at a real event. |
| Competition. Other platforms could court the same orphaned base. | Deadline‑boxed first‑mover push; art‑world relationships (Pace/Hobbs, Kim); identity differentiator others lack. |