Unlockd
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Unlockd was an Australian ad-tech startup founded in 2014 by Matt Berriman. Its apps rewarded Android users with mobile credit and data for viewing ads on their lock screens, and it sold that attention to advertisers through partnerships with telcos and phone makers.
02 / Unlockd FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
Unlockd was destroyed by its dependence on Google's platform. Google disabled AdMob for Unlockd's Australian app in September 2017 over alleged policy violations, then threatened to remove its apps from the Play Store. Unlockd sued in the Federal Court alleging anticompetitive conduct and won an interim injunction, but with distribution cut off it entered voluntary administration in June 2018, blaming Google; the liquidators later discontinued the case.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Operations ended in administration
Unlockd entered voluntary administration after Google threatened removal from the Play Store ecosystem and denied access to AdMob.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Lock-screen ads: users earn mobile credit and data
- 02
Telco and phone-maker distribution partnerships
- 03
Google disables AdMob (2017), threatens Play Store removal
- 04
Voluntary administration, June 2018; lawsuit discontinued