Sorare raises USD 680m Series B led by Softbank

The round also saw participation from Atomico, Bessemer Ventures, D1 Capital, Eurazeo, IVP and Liontree. They were joined by existing investors Benchmark, Accel and Headline, as well as business angels including football players Gerard Piqué, Antoine Griezmann, Rio Ferdinand and César Azpilicueta.

The round gives Sorare a post-money valuation of USD 4.3bn. In a statement, the company claimed that the investment is Europe's largest ever Series B. 

It is certainly a significant step-up from the previous round. According to Unquote Data, Sorare raised a USD 50m Series A led by Benchmark, with participation from Accel and existing investors, in February this year.

EVentures led a USD 4m seed funding round for Sorare in July 2020.

Sorare said it plans to sign up the top 20 football leagues and expand into other sports to strengthen its position. The company also said it is further building its team and will open a US office to fuel its growth.

Company
Sorare was launched in 2019 in Paris by entrepreneurs Nicolas Julia and Adrien Montfort, who wanted to use blockchain technology to create a new category in the sports gaming industry. The company has built an online marketplace where users can buy and sell scarce non-fungible tokens (NFT) representing football players, ranked based on their performances in real matches.

At the time of the seed round in 2020, Sorare claimed that it was already profitable, having sold USD 1m's worth of cards across 50 countries. The trading platform has multiplied by 10x its volume from $30,000 in December 2019 to $350,000 in June 2020.

The company said it has since experienced "tremendous" growth in 2021 with more than USD 150m's worth of cards traded on the platform since January. The number of monthly active paying Sorare users grew by 34x between Q2 2020 and Q2 2021, the company added, with quarterly sales increasing by 51x over the same period.

People
Sorare – Nicolas Julia (CEO and co-founder).

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