In 2012, a Brooklyn-based mobile app development startup was hired to work for the 83-year-old trading card company Topps. For Erich Wood, the president of Brooklyn costumes, a UCLA graduate who studied economics and loved trading cards, this opportunity will not only sound fun, but will change his course.
At the time, Topps had licenses with Major League Baseball, the NFL, and Star Wars, bringing in a little Wood outfit discovered by Topps’ then digital director, and the first of all three digital trading card platforms. It was created.
The card took off immediately. In fact, according to Wood, things went so well that he and his digital chief, Michael Bram Rage, decided to partner with their digital collection company in 2016. Quid..
Fast forwarding to this day, Bramlage is Quidd’s CEO, acquired by Animoca Brands in 2019, and is now operating as an independent subsidiary.Meanwhile, Wood is quietly building a new 13-person business. Tibles It raised just $ 3 million in seed funding Cadenza VenturesWith the participation of former supporter Dapper Labs (the “NBA Top Shot” swept the world) Earlier this year).
Interestingly, Tibles doesn’t seem to be much different from Quidd, but Quidd stores collectibles “off-chain”, that is, on a centralized server, while Tibles is a blockchain developed by Dapper in Flow. I am creating an NFT marketplace that only runs. (Quidd says on his homepage that “it’s coming to the blockchain soon.”)
While Tibles also focuses on pop culture and entertainment brands, Quidd also sells sports goods.
Perhaps most importantly, unlike Quidd and other digital collection markets, Tibles suggests that it’s not just about digitizing existing images and converting them to NFTs. Instead, we plan to work with the brand to create an ecosystem with original licensed art, trading experience and community. Its ultimate goal is to make the digital collection experience as real as the physical one, the company says.
I’m still not sure if it works as planned, but as a starting point, Tibles is Dr. Withdrawing the partnership between Seuss Enterprises and Dapper Labs,SeussiblesInvites fans of Theodore Geisel to own his character’s NFTs (Lorax, Grinch, Horton the Elephant, etc.) and invite them to interact with other fans.
As Wood explains, NFTs come in 5 packs of blinds that are reminiscent of Pokemon cards. These cards or “stickers” can be viewed in a “sticker book” where other users can see each other’s collections.
There is also a clubhouse area where fans can interact and a trading area where you can exchange your holdings.
Currently, the prices for all packs are the same. There is no “limited edition” NFT, but you can imagine Tibles looking at what people are trading to find out which characters are more valuable to fans than others.
When it comes to startup roadmaps, hiring is, of course, a priority. Tibles will also work closely with Dapper to obtain more license agreements so that we can generate more content. (For more information, Wood states that “the license roadmap can be long” and “full of secrets.”)
On the development side, Wood says the plan is pretty simple. Tibles says, “We are very focused on providing the user experience. [so that] Anyone can buy a product as easily as any other Apple in-app purchase. He also wants to make it very easy for users to join the community, share, organize and trade things. “We focus on making this fun and recreating it. [success] For several different publishers and licenses, and different experiences. “
Indeed, Wood knows from his years in the digital collectibles market that different fan groups tend to value a great deal of different things. The deal between Dapper and Dr. Seuss Enterprises revolves around cards-like stickers, but in future projects for other clients, “video or animation. They may interact.”
A unified thread means that everything will be a collectable web object. The rest depends on the property. “We spend a lot of time understanding IP and brands, and their fans and what they like,” says Wood. “And it rarely works.”
The latest round of Tibles follows the previous $ 1.19 million seed round funding. Earlier this year..
In addition to Dapper Labs, who led the early rounds, Coin Fund and Warburg Serres also participated in both tranches.
