Car brand Kia uses NFTs to raise funding for non-profit animal shelter

The non-fungible token (NFT) space continues to derive new use cases despite this year’s bear market. The US unit of Kia, one of the leading car brands, is using NFTs to support a non-profit organization committed to solving the issues facing overcrowded animal shelters.

Kia uses NFTs to raise funding for non-profit

Kia has minted its first set of digital collectibles. The car company will use these digital collectibles to secure funding to support overcrowded animal shelters. The company has secured $100,000 in funding for the non-profit organization known as The Petfinder Foundation.

Kia has raised the funding needed to support the non-profit by auctioning robotic puppy-themed NFTs. The company has also added another $500,000 in fiat from Kia. The amount will cover the adoption costs for the over 22,000 animals living in shelters.

The NFTs were launched in February this year, depicting a “Robo Dog.” The latter is a robotic puppy featured in the Kia Super Bowl in 2021. The launch of these digital collectibles makes Kia the latest major brand to support donations through NFTs.

It is not the first time NFTs have been used to support donations. These digital collectibles were used to secure finds for the founder of the Silk Road marketplace. Starbucks and NFT vending machines based in London have also used these collectibles for the same cause.

In the case of Kia, the car brand put up 10,000 “adoption pass” NFTs that were claimed through a free mint on the Tezos network. An additional 10,000 generative NFTs were later listed for sale after a week through a partnership with the NBA All-Star Game in mid-February.

The Kia NFTs were not expensive, as they were listed for around $20.22 each. These digital collectibles sold out the same day they were listed on the Sweet NFT marketplace and raised $100,000 from the same. There were other expensive and rare collectibles that contributed to the funding.

Some of the other features of these digital collectibles was a 10% creator royalty that went towards Petfinder and not Kia. This royalty was paid to the non-profit when the Robo Dog was resold. A spokesperson from the company noted that the car brand chose to work with the Sweet NFT marketplace because they understood Kia’s brand and had user-friendly features that accepted both crypto and non-crypto payments.

Working with Petfinder

Kia also noted that the car brand started looking for places to invest at the height of the COVID pandemic. The company’s executives detected a rise in pet adoptions during the period, which prompted the company to make its NFT initiatives.

The Petfinder Foundation is a non-profit that works with adoption groups and pet shelters within the United States. Kia noted that it wanted to do something different with NFTs and their growing popularity by tapping into the popularity of Robo Dog.