The Football Company
Munich-based Web 3.0 expert The Football Company has raised €2.5 million (US$2.64 million) in a seed funding round led by Dreamcraft that will help fund a metaverse fantasy soccer gaming platform.
In addition to Dreamcraft Ventures, Dapper Labs, Web3 Studios, BLN Capital, and various business angels participated in the round, as well as professional soccer players such as Joshua Kimmich and Cesc Fabregas.
The capital will be used to expand into new markets, recruit new employees and set the ground to scale The Football Company’s non-fungible token (NFT) sports ecosystem. The Football Company’s first product in this space is The Football Club, with tokens representing analogue merchandise in the form of a 3D object that users can deploy for their avatars.
Ante Kristo (pictured above, right), chief executive of The Football Company, said: “Our goal as football fanatics is to respect the legacy and culture of football while using cutting edge technology to create the most authentic and advanced virtual football experience yet. TFC is an extremely easy to use blockchain-based fantasy platform and free to play. The fresh funding will help us to take the next steps on our journey and we are very happy to further connect the worlds of football and the metaverse.”
Mikkel Marfelt, Dreamcraft Ventures investment manager, added: “With this investment we are taking NFTs to new heights. You could call it NFT 2.0 really. The power of communities around NFTs are going to be one of the strongest drivers in the space. TFC is positioned to be the core driver of this shift with their key focus on the football fandom culture.”
The Football Company generates revenue by issuing digital collectibles that can be traded on The Football Club marketplace, with fans also able to earn rewards by managing their NFTs tied to a ‘squad’ of soccer players in a fantasy experience based on real-life sports performances.
The Football Club UX concept is built around users’ avatars, with NFTs being sold on the platform that represents the identity of the person acquiring them. To source this digital merchandise, The Football Club has acquired an official German Football League (DFL) licence and agreed collaboration deals with a list of clubs that includes Eintracht Frankfurt, VfL Wolfsburg, Hertha Berlin and Young Boys Bern.
So far the Football Company has successfully dropped four NFT collections with its partners, generating more than €270,000 (US$285,000) in revenue in less than four weeks and seeing all collections selling out in less than 24 hours.
The Football Club community, built on the Flow blockchain ecosystem created by Dapper Labs, has so far reached 25,000.
