Sweet, an American Non-Fungible Token (NFT) platform has recently announced the backing received from Animoca Brands in a newly concluded strategic funding round in which it raised $110 pre-money. This milestone has major significance, not just for Sweet, but also for Animoca Brands and the entire NFT and gaming world.

Non-Fungible Tokens are a unique expression or application of blockchain technology and digital currencies. In its simplest terms, NFTs help to register ownership of digital assets on the blockchain, guaranteeing their legitimacy and authenticity. Based on their nature, NFTs, which are often rare and limited have grown in popularity, and innovative minds have been exploring use cases for this new technology. Based on the explosion of these use cases, NFTs are now being embraced by brands to connect with their customers and users in a more unique way.

However, scaling NFTs based on the existing limitations in the blockchain networks where they are minted has often been a challenge, stirring the emergence of Sweets into the NFT metaverse. The beauty of any new technology is for it to gain mainstream acceptance, and just a few dedicated platforms including Sweet are committed to this pursuit.

The funding from Animoca Brands will help Sweet meet its goals in terms of finances. According to the firm, the capital injection is billed to aid Sweet in scaling partnership opportunities across Asia, add personnel to their US-based corporate headquarters and manage enterprise partnerships with properties and teams across the NBA, NHL, F1 racing, Fortune 500 retail brands, quick-serve restaurants, and more.

“We are thrilled to have Animoca Brands join our investor group as we continue to scale globally, and build strategic relationships with retail and enterprise brand partners,” said Tom Mizzone, CEO and founder of Sweet. “Sweet is pioneering next-generation enterprise NFT solutions enabling the largest brands to deploy NFTs in deeply integrated ways, and our goal is to ensure everyone – from the high-end crypto collectors to everyday fans and consumers – can digitally interact with their favorite brands in an accessible, frictionless, and enjoyable manner.”

The Sweet Brand and What it Brings to the Table

Before now, brands, irrespective of the products or services they offer have often explored various options to incentivize their loyal customers. While the term ‘Brands’ may come off as too commercial, sports icons, artists, musicians, and social media personalities often find a way to show their enthusiastic followers some love. This may be in the form of a signed baseball, and an autograph amongst other things.

The drudgery of exploring ways to reach fans or customers is being taken away by Sweet, through the exploitation of the nascent NFT revolution. Based on the technology the startup brandishes, artists, teams, and brands can now create special, one-of-a-kind digital collectibles for fans and consumers. It is worthy of note that these digital collectibles can take on any form ranging from a piece of art, a unique pin, token card or image, an embedded video, audio, or animation. 

The digital collectibles are designed such that they do not take away the “fan affinity and pride of ownership” as physical collectibles do, by virtue of their limited or rare nature. The Sweet ecosystem also brings to the fore the superiority of digital collectibles to brands which include;

• Prevention of counterfeits,
• Better storage and shipping via online compatible channels, and;
• Better sharing options when compared to physical collectibles.

The offering of Sweet has been recognized by a number of brands which include but not limited to Dave & Busters and the New York Knicks. These brands have an NFT collectible on the Sweet platform and are available for purchase. Each collectible have its rarity, and authenticity, all of which are verifiable and they are all individually numbered, and cannot be tampered with. The Animoca Brands backing will help Sweet onboard more brands, all to foster the broad adoption of NFT and blockchain technology.

Technological Highlights of the Sweet Ecosystem

Interoperability and usability are central to the world of blockchain technology, and the Sweet infrastructure aligns in major ways with these core blockchain features. At the moment, the Sweet platform supports the Smooth Love Potion (SLP) standard for NFTs, and the Ethereum ERC721 standard. A further commitment to add more compatible blockchains are in the roadmap for Sweet as the digital collectibles marketplace evolves.

Sweet can be accessed via an application available for downloads on both the Android Play Store as well as the iOS App Store. The functionalities on the web and app based versions are the same, and all brandishes similar “features and user experience, and provide the same benefits of a blockchain-based digital collectible,” as affirmed by the platform.

Each of the NFT standards have their own inherent properties with the SLP standards coming off with more energy efficient system than their Ethereum counterparts. The Sweet offering makes it convenient not just to mint or buy NFT and related tokens, it also provides an easy access to trade these digital collectibles at any time.