European Football NFT platform Sorare is fast becoming the future of sports NFTs with record-setting funds. The fantasy soccer and digital collectable platform announced, on Tuesday, a $680 million series B raise- the largest ever in the NFT space.
The Series B lead investors include SoftBank Vision Fund, LionTree, Bessemer Ventures, IVP, Hillhouse and Atomico. This recent funding round leaves the company valued at $4.3 billion. So rare says that it has traded over $150 million worth of digital cards on its platform since the start of this year and has over 600,000 registered users currently.
This is not the first time that Sorare has seen significant success. From Q2 2020 to Q2 2021, the European company’s sales increased 54x from the previous year. Sorare has said that it will use the new funds to propel growth and expand outside of soccer collectables.
In a press release, CEO Nicolas Julia said that he sees an opportunity to “introduce the same proven model to other sports and sports fans worldwide and will be opening a U.S. office in the near future.”
The company has set its sights on Basketball, American Football, and Baseball as the next targets for its current model. The global sports NFT market continues to mature and as this happens, U.S companies will look to take market share of the European soccer NFT space. Head of operations at Sorare, Thibaut Predhomme, is not worried about having to compete on their own turf.
Thibaut said, “We are the only ones that have bridged the gap between the game, collectibility and utility over the lifetime of sports NFTs. U.S. companies are more about collectibility, so no, I’m not worried about them competing in the European market.”
Last February, Sorare raised a $50 million Series A funding round, led by venture capital firm Benchmark. The platform already hosts NFTs from some of Europe’s most popular sports teams including Liverpool, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Juventus.
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