SORARE SECURES $50M IN SERIES A ROUND LED BY BENCHMARK

Digital collectible football platform Sorare has secured $50M USD in Series A financing, in a round led by Benchmark. 

Other investors included Accel and new business angels Alexis Ohanian (Reddit co-founder), Gary Vaynerchuk (Vaynermedia CEO), and football players Antoine Griezmann and Rio Ferdinand.

The new investment brings Sorare’s total funding to-date to around $60M USD, and the company says it will use the new capital to fuel growth of its community, accelerate hiring, and launch a mobile application. 

Sorare aims to build “the game within the game” by offering fans the opportunity to celebrate, share, and own their football passion. Through tradable digital cards, which are non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on a blockchain, the platform enables players to genuinely own their collectibles, which can be used in its collective fantasy football experience – in which players can earn prizes. 

The company is already profitable and has recorded an incredible 52% month-on-month growth rate over the past 12 months, going from €50K euro worth of cards traded on the platform in January 2020, to €3.5M euro in January 2021, across 120 countries. Since launching, over 120 football clubs have launched digital cards on Sorare, including five European Champions. 

Nicolas Julia, CEO at Sorare explained: “Sorare was born from our love for football. We’re building a gaming experience fueled by passion where fans can connect with football and a global community. On Sorare, they can truly own the game. Today is a watershed moment – both for Sorare as a company and for our community – that will enable us to touch new markets and radically improve our product to become the game within the beautiful game.”

Peter Fenton, General Partner at Benchmark commented: “We’re thrilled to partner with Sorare as their lead Series A investor. The company combines the global passion for football collectibles with the excitement of real-world play in fantasy league tournaments. The founders early work in blockchain technology gave them the unique insight into a killer application for a new NFT – real players in real games creating enduring value for a digital artifact. Their explosive growth codifies the utility of these technologies in everyday life.”

AYO.NEWS says:

The emergence of NFT-based collectibles was somewhat obscured by the crypto frenzy of past years, but as we’ve argued before, probably offers the most sustainable and interesting use-case for tokenisation and blockchain technologies.

From sporting collectibles to in-game weapons, skins, vehicles and even virtual real estate and digital art, the possibilities for the new 100% virtual economy offered by NFTs are staggering – and we’ve barely scratched the surface. NFTs are going to be big beyond imagination.