Something is Minting: Grapes 🍇
All about Grapes: team, vision, mint details, post-mint roadmap
Speakers: Saint, Dan + Ben (Grapes Co-Founders)
Something is Minting: Grapes AMA below 👇🏼
Introduction
Hey everyone, we are back with another edition of the Something is Minting series.
In the spotlight today, we’ve got Grapes.
Grapes is creating a global entertainment IP in Web3.
Socials References 🌍
Sections of the newsletter
Description ✍🏼
Team 👷🏼♂️
Funding & Support 💲
Core Product Details & Experience ⚒️
The Grape Juice Game 🎮
Community curation & engagement 🌐
Degen details 💰
Business model 🤑
Utility & Benefits 🚀
Post mint details 🛣️
Key details / What do we like? 🎯
What are we keeping an eye on? 👀
Closing thoughts 💭
Description ✍🏼
Grapes is a family-friendly entertainment IP project in the web3 ecosystem, aiming to transcend conventional gaming through interactive experiences, products, and licensing, with a core focus on mobile gaming integrated with crypto.
It’s a project by the Viker Group - a gaming studio established in 2019 and has already released over 50 games!
They are striving to become the Angry Birds for Web3.
Team 👷🏼♂️
The team is led by super-active founders Dan & Ben!
Let’s learn about their fantastic background & work experience 👇
Ben has extensive experience in the mobile gaming industry, dating back to 2004
For approximately eight years, he led the mobile gaming strategy and studios for Square Enix, a major video game developer.
During his tenure at Square Enix, Ben worked on iconic games like Lara Croft, Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy, Space Invaders, Championship Manager, and Mini Ninjas
Dan's journey in the mobile industry began in 2006 when one of the first things he did was introduce David Beckham to mobile platforms with Motorola.
Dan has significant experience adapting mainstream entertainment for mobile platforms, including successful adaptations of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, X Factor (UK and US), and Mr. Bean, the largest fictional character globally, enhances its presence across mobile platforms.
Cumulatively the projects they have worked on have achieved approximately 500 million downloads. 🤯
Let’s also understand the broader team as well:
A team of 15, based in London with an international footprint including South America, Europe, Barcelona, and Asia
A blend of web2 and web3 professionals, with professionals from well-known gaming companies like Gameloft and Zynga.
The team composition is roughly 50% for development and 50% for product and design, with a similar breakdown for web3 native vs. web2 native team members.
Fun fact: Ben has known Dan for longer than either of them has known their wives (poor Saint missed on highlighting it, and Ben called it out; I don’t wanna be in the same boat, haha 😛)
Funding & Support 💲
They are backed by one of the best investors in the web3 ecosystem: Animoca Brands.
Other investors include:
Infinity Ventures Crypto
Swordfish Investments
Initial Capital.
They are partnering with the biggest projects & most forward-thinking super brands in the world, like 👇
Animoca Brands and some of web3’s most recognizable industry leaders have joined as advisors, like Tom, Founder of CoolCats.
Core Product Details & Experience ⚒️
Grapes project aims to create a family-friendly, universally appealing IP that can be incorporated into various forms like games, animations, mobile stickers, and more.
Drawing inspiration from the world's biggest grossing entertainment IPs, the team envisions Grapes evolving and expanding into various forms of entertainment.
The project strongly emphasizes community involvement and encourages its members to contribute creatively.
The Grapes project is focused on delivering value to its initial holder base.
Stake in Grapes: Holders have a stake in the Grapes brand, fostering community and shared vision.
Community Wealth: Grapes’ success translates into wealth generation for early supporters.
Participation-Led: They emphasize participation from their community, shaping its direction and growth.
Transcending web3: The goal is to extend beyond web3, creating more value and utility for holders.
The Grape Juice Game 🎮
Grapes has already released Grape Juice, a mobile game on the App Store and Google Play Store.
The game has exceeded expectations in core metrics, with impressive Day 1 retention rates of over 80% (compared to the industry average of 35%) and Day 7 retention of around 41% (compared to the industry average of 15-20%).
Average play sessions have reached over an hour, with some days exceeding 85 minutes.
Important metrics:
259K+ Games
1.4 Billion Points
6.2 Million Lines
9.2K+ Avg. Score
Community design & curation 🌐
In terms of community curation for the project, the team has adopted a hands-on, immersive approach rooted in personal involvement, active learning, and robust collaboration.
They've embraced a hands-on, immersive approach, learning from others and sharing their insights. Collaboration is a cornerstone of their community design, with advisory board members from successful projects and numerous joint ventures underway.
They strive for organic growth, valuing genuine engagement with real users over artificially inflated numbers. The power of word-of-mouth and personal recommendations is central to their strategy, as they believe it's essential for fostering stronger relationships and community growth.
This holistic approach underscores their commitment to meaningful, authentic interactions within their community.
Here’s how they are running the allocation strategy:
They launched a meta mint game named “Grape Juice”; allocation is tied to game performance.
A portion is allocated for collaborations with various communities / web3 projects.
They're running a “grape list” (whitelist) that is followed with a first-come-first-serve, second phase strategy.
The remaining NFTs will be available in a public sale starting May 31st.
Degen details 💰
Let’s get into the spicy details, shall we?
Name: Grapes
Supply: 5555
Price: 0.039 ETH
Mint Date: 31st May 2023
Platform: OpenSea
Royalties: 5%
Distribution breakdown of 5555 supply:
10% (555) to the team Treasury
5000 will be open for the community
Game winners
Grapelist
Partnered communities
Remaining open to public
Accessible Price Point for Secondary Price Discovery: Their chosen price point fits within what's considered a "sweet spot" (between 0.025e to 0.069e) for enough secondary price discovery, while not over-extracting from the community.
Business Model 🤑
The motivation of a paid mint is tied directly to its strategy of
building a committed community
covering operational costs
creating shared value
So, the initial two revenue drivers are:
Primary Sales: The initial sale of the 5555 Grapes provides the primary source of revenue
5000 (supply for community) x 0.039e (cost for each NFT) ≈ 200 ETH
Raising almost ~$370,000 from their initial mint
Secondary Sales Royalties: On every secondary-grapes trades on platforms like Opensea and Blur (possibly) - the team will receive 5% royalties as well
Utility & Benefits 🚀
The core utility/benefits include:
Ownership: By owning Grapes NFTs, holders have ownership rights and can participate in the community's decision-making processes.
Access to Products: Grapes NFT holders gain access to exclusive products, such as games, animations, Giphy, mobile stickers, and more, featuring the Grapes IP.
Value Creation: As the Grapes project expands and achieves success, holders can benefit from the appreciation in the value of their NFTs and potentially earn a return on their investment.
Community Rewards: The project aims to reward early holders and community members as it grows, sharing commercial success with the community.
Collaboration Opportunities: Grapes actively seeks collaborations with other projects, offering partnership opportunities, cross-promotions, and shared experiences.
IP Expansion: Grapes aims to expand its IP beyond games into other mediums like animated videos and immersive physical experiences, providing additional avenues for engagement and value.
Token Utility: The project plans to launch a utility token to provide governance rights and utility within the ecosystem, including potential staking and other incentives for token holders.
Post mint details 🛣️
The post-mint experience includes the evolution of Grape Juice into a post-mint game.
The team plans to expand the Grape games portfolio, incorporating play-to-earn, play-to-mint, and play-to-collect elements. There are multiple more games ready in the pipeline.
The team plans to launch a token, offering new mechanics and ways to participate in the Grapes community. It will provide opportunities for earning airdrops and other benefits, bringing new players into the space, and discussions are underway with leading exchanges for listing.
The team has already determined the token allocations and plans to provide more details in the coming weeks.
As for the allocation strategy and token distribution to NFT holders, further information will be shared in the future.
The team is working on building and expanding the Grapes IP across various mediums.
They are targeting platforms with a large audience, such as Fortnite, Roblox, and Sandbox, which collectively have over 100 million daily active users.
They also plan to create immersive digital and physical experiences globally in around 200 global locations in 2023-2024.
In addition, the team is exploring staking and aims to implement it in their ecosystem.
While specific details about the token and allocation strategies may not be available, the team has extensive plans for post-mint utility, focusing on the post-mint experience and delivering value to token holders.
Key details / What do we like? 🎯
Already have a playable game launched with more in pipeline.
Backed with a full seed round which includes investors like Animoca & Initial Capital.
Focus on building long-lasting IP brands & experiences
Extremely experienced team with a fine balance of web3 & web2 talent
What are we keeping an eye on? 👀
Supply size a bit higher than desired at 5555
Many post-mint utilities, like partnerships and token launches, are being teased - but not much information has been revealed.
This is a really rough secondary market as most paid mints are failing.
Building IP-heavy franchises are always tough & takes a very long time to realize IP value back to holders.
Closing thoughts 💭
In conclusion, Grapes is a promising project that combines the worlds of NFTs and gaming, offering unique NFTs, play-to-earn opportunities, and a vibrant community.
With its focus on transparency, engagement, and expanding its IP across various mediums, Grapes aims to deliver value, foster innovation, and provide a rewarding experience for its community.
As they near their mint date and continue to evolve to launch their utility token, Grapes holds the potential to shape the future of entertainment IP & gaming in web3.
As always, do you own research. :)