Unlockd co

Matt Berriman is a founder who doesn’t shy away from a fight, but after eight years up against one of tech’s most powerful global giants, he’s called a halt to his legal battle with Google over the demise of Unlockd.

The founder, VC investor and mental health advocate took to LinkedIn to reveal that his team’s attempt to overturn a 2025 decision in favour of Google had failed in the US Ninth Circuit Federal Appeals Court.

The Australian adtech startup, founded in 2014, raised more than $60 million from investors including Lachlan Murdoch and Catch of the Day founders Hezi and Gabby Leibovich. It had 330,000 monthly users, was valued at $200 million and was preparing to list on the ASX when Google banned it from its app store in early 2018.

The startup served ads on Android phone lock screens in return for user rewards such as credits, loyalty points or discounts

At the time, Berriman, then 33, had stepped aside as CEO in February 2018 to treat his bipolar disorder.

Google cited a breach of “a number of its policies” as its reason for banning Unlockd. It subsequently emerged that the company had invested in a similar Indian company called Glance.

While legal wrangling began immediately in English and Australian courts, where Unlockd received interim injunctions to prevent apps from being removed from the Google Play Store in the UK, Europe, and Australia and to disable its AdMob work, the damage was done, and by June 2018, the startup was placed in voluntary administration and was wound up.

Berriman launched legal action in the US in 2021 after details of Google’s investment in a rival tech company emerged.

The latest twist “marks the end of a painful 8-year fight for justice,” he said in a statement. “This battle has been a hard-trodden path, both personally and professionally. Spending twice as long fighting for the great business my team, investors and I built has not been easy. “The immense challenges that we faced legally were equally matched by the ones that I personally endured to do so, where I continued to feel the weight of those that had and continued to back me.

“I was never going to shy away from this fight, right to the very end. As many founders know, the responsibility of taking other people’s money means you do everything in your power to ensure there is a return for their trust, capital and commitment to you. This was never lost on me.”

The 2021 case led to a US District judge tossing out the antitrust case at the pleading stage. He ruled Unlockd’s case lacked the factual support to demonstrate that Google’s actions were tantamount to injury to the whole digital ad market and wasn’t enough to show harm to the market from alleged monopolisation.

In May and June, before a three-judge panel heard Unlockd’s appeal, which argued that the lower court erred in ruling there wasn’t a sufficient injury, because Google’s conduct harmed both app users who viewed ads and consumers seeking to advertise.

US Circuit judge Jacqueline Hong-Ngoc Nguyen said Google had many rivals in the “very broad” proposed market, and doubted Unlockd had sufficiently alleged harm to the entire market, since its antitrust market included online digital advertising in six countries.

“I think the difficulty with their case is the bigger the marketplace, the more number of players involved, the harder it is to allege antitrust injury,” her Honour said.

The unsuccessful US appeal by Unlockd follows the 2025 US Justice Department adtech case Google lost.

A Virginia Federal Court judge ruled that Google illegally acquired and maintained monopolies in two connected markets: open-web ad exchanges via Google’s AdX exchange; and publisher ad servers via what’s now known as Google Ad Manager.

The European Commission also fined Google €2.95 billion (AU$4.85 billion) for abusing its dominant position across the ad-tech chain. It found Google had favoured its own ad exchange AdX.

Last month, the EU handed Google another €890 million (AU$1.4 billion) fine for breaking digital antitrust regulations.

The EU said the technology behemoth broke its antitrust laws by setting up Google Play and its ubiquitous search engine to corral consumers towards its own services and apps to the detriment of competitors.

Berriman, a professional cricketer before becoming a founder, went on to co-found RealVC and chair Mental Health Australia, before stepping down from the role in 2024, with a stinging rebuke of the Albanese government.

“I don’t think over the last 20 years mental health has been addressed in this country and the Labor government promised that was going to happen and it hasn’t,” Berriman said at the time.

He then moved to the US as CEO of Livewire in 2025 and is now based in London as executive chair of Xailient.

“As I unfortunately close the last page of the Unlockd chapter, which brought some of my best and worst professional and personal moments, I’d like to thank firstly my family and friends for their unconditional love and support, my old Unlockrs who were in the trenches with me day and night, my shareholders, Board members, legal teams, trustees, advisors and all those who supported the business and me personally though this roller-coaster journey,” he said. “Despite the immense pride I still have in the company I built and those who joined me on that journey, it doesn’t give solace to the ending we were forced to bear, nor the financial result we have been left with.”

Meanwhile, the legal battles for Google continue with the search giant appealing a 2024 US District Court antitrust ruling that found the company illegally held a monopoly in online search.

This article was first published by Startup Daily.

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