Quick take:
- Cristiano Ronaldo is said to be among backers in FanCraze’s $100M fundraise.
- The FanCraze is the first-ever NFT marketplace to offer official Cricket Collectibles.
- The Series A funding round was led by B Capital Group and Insight Partners according to people familiar with the matter.
Cristiano Ronaldo has become the latest superstar to take a major step into the world of NFTs. According to a report by Bloomberg, the Manchester United star is among backers in a Cricket NFT startup fundraising of $100 million. FanCraze is a non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace that offers official cricket collectibles.
Citing people familiar with the matter, the media conglomerate wrote “venture capital firms B Capital Group and Insight Partners are leading FanCraze’s Series A round.”
FanCraze, previously known as Faze Technologies secured a partnership with the International Cricket Council (ICC), the global governing cricket governing body.
Subsequently, it raised $17.4 million in a seed round led by Tiger Global Management, with the NFT marketplace’s CEO Anshum Bhambri saying at the time that the company’s long-term goal was to build the world’s first cricket metaverse. Coatue, Sequoia Capital India and Dapper Labs also participated in the funding round.
One of the sources told Bloomberg that an announcement of the funding round could be made within a few weeks.
Representatives of the mentioned parties failed to comment on the issue, while a media response from Manchester United was not available to respond to an email sent outside business hours.
Founded in 2021, FanCraze has already sealed a deal with the ICC to create exclusive cricket non-fungible tokens on the Flow blockchain. It launched its NFT marketplace in January this year, also releasing its first pack of cricket NFTs.
FanCraze’s underlying blockchain Flow also hosts the famed NBA Top Shot collection, which gained worldwide popularity last year.
Sports NFTs are becoming a trend in the non-fungible token industry with the English Premier League (EPL) recently choosing the blockchain platform, ConsenSys to offer official NFTs.
Although OpenSea continues to dominate the industry in terms of the user base, daily transactions and cumulative transaction volume, several niches NFT marketplace continue to crop up, giving fans of the specific services and products offered in the industry an opportunity to join exclusive communities.
Stay up to date:
