SoftBank Scores With $680m Funding Round For NFT Soccer Game Sorare

Japan’s SoftBank has led a £680-million funding round for blockchain-based fantasy soccer game Sorare, with players including ex-England star Rio Ferdinand and Spain’s Gerard Pique also investing.

Paris-based Sorare said, in the announcement on Tuesday, that the investment now valued the company at $4.3 billion.

Founded in 2018, Sorare is an online game where players buy officially licensed cards representing soccer players and build teams which play against each other, with the outcome based on the players’ performance in real-life games.

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The cards are traded in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), a kind of crypto asset which records the ownership status of digital goods on blockchain.

The market for NFTs has seen explosive growth in 2021, with collectible and sports-related ones the most popular types of token.

“We think NFTs represent a new paradigm in the collectability, usability, and engagement with assets,” Michel Combes, president of SoftBank Group International, said.

“This evolution from physical assets to digital assets is very powerful, and creates a lot of exciting potential business models.”

Sorare is the largest sports-based NFT platform by sales volume, according to NonFungible.com, a website which tracks NFT market data. It plans to open an office in the United States and expand into sports other than soccer.

‘BLOCKCHAIN POTENTIAL’

“We saw the immense potential that blockchain and NFTs brought to unlock a new way for football clubs, footballers, and their fans to experience a deeper connection with each other,” Nicolas Julia, CEO and co-founder of Sorare, said.

“We believe this is a huge opportunity to create the next sports entertainment giant.”

Since January 2021, there have been $150 million of sales on Sorare, which accepts payments via credit card and the cryptocurrency ether. The most expensive unique card is of Cristiano Ronaldo, which was bought for 245,072 euros ($287,420.44) on March 13.

The fundraising round was SoftBank’s first investment in Sorare, and done via its SoftBank Vision Fund 2.

This is not SoftBank’s first foray into NFTs. It also led investment in the NFT marketplace OpenSea in July and invested in the decentralised finance platform Juggernaut in March.

Other investors in Sorare’s raise include venture capital firms Accel and Bessemer Ventures, as well as the footballers Pique, Ferdinand, France’s Antoine Griezmann and Spain’s Cesar Azpilicueta.