Today Candy Digital and Palm NFT Studio announced they would merge, with the combined firm led by Candy CEO Scott Lawin and retaining the Candy brand. Candy is a major sports rights holder for non fungible tokens (NFTs), including for Major League Baseball (MLB), NASCAR and WWE. It also has an alliance with Netflix.
Palm is best known for its DC Comics collectible offering, as well as a relationship with DC owner Warner Bros Discovery.
The two firms already had strong links beyond Candy minting its NFTs on the Palm network, an Ethereum compatible sidechain.
Common shareholdings
ConsenSys had a financial interest in both firms.
Candy was originally a three way venture between sports ecommerce giant Fanatics, Galaxy Digital and Gary Vaynerchuk. After raising $100 million led by Softbank in 2021, Candy had another funding round this January. The investment involved a buyout of most of Fanatic’s 60% stake in Candy. The round was led by ConsenSys Mesh and Galaxy, with 10T Holdings also involved.
Joe Lubin, the ConsenSys founder, is a co-founder of Palm. He is also the former college roommate of Galaxy Digital founder Michael Novogratz.
Hence this is a classic consolidation from the perspective of ConsenSys.
At one point, the two firms competed for the same NFT rights: Premier League soccer. Despite Candy having the sports pedigree, ConsenSys won the rights. However, it reportedly tried to renegotiate after the 2022 crypto crash, and the Premier League handed the contract to Sorare.
“Over the past two years, Candy Digital and Palm NFT Studio have pioneered breakthrough digital experiences and crafted innovative creative tools, connecting fans to some of the world’s most captivating content,” said Lawin. “Together, we’ll accelerate our mission of defining a new category of brand experience that focuses on co-creation, rewarding loyalty and connecting communities.”
Today’s announcement shared some figures. Candy has minted 2 million collectibles with nearly 500,000 secondary marketplace trades. The DC (Comics) NFT universe has 675,000 accounts and 230,000 marketplace transactions.
