OneFootball
- Series D round will be used to expand OneFootball’s global soccer platform
- Joint-venture will attempt to drive mass adoption of Web 3.0 technologies in soccer
Digital soccer platform OneFootball has raised US$300 million in additional funding to drive its expansion into Web 3.0-based digital products such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) for leagues, federations and players around the world.
The Series D round was led by blockchain fund Liberty City Ventures and also saw the involvement of Animoca Brands and Dapper Labs, all of which will become partners in a newly-created OneFootball Labs Web 3.0 joint-venture.
Other participants in the round included DAH Beteiligungs, Quiet Capital, RIT Capital Partners, Senator Investment Group, and Alsara Investment.
OneFootball believes its 100 million-strong user base coupled with the involvement of some of the leading players in the emerging sports Web 3.0 space mean it is well positioned to drive the mass adoption of blockchain-based experiences in soccer.
“OneFootball will take tens of millions of soccer supporters from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0, while retaining the thing our platform was built on – a commitment to the real-world fan,” said Lucas von Cranach, founder and chief executive of OneFootball.
“We’ve got big plans for the future and this successful Series D fundraising round – following long-term strategic investments in leading Web 3.0 businesses – will help us to go even further.
“We believe the future of football away from the stands and off the pitch will be decentralised and built on Web 3.0, giving back the ownership of data and digital assets to the fans. OneFootball and OneFootball Labs will transform the digital experiences for soccer fans, giving them more access, more ownership and bringing them even closer to the game we all love, in a way that’s never been done before.”
OneFootball offers a range of content to its users, including news, scores, videos, and live soccer matches. In 2021 alone, it posted 15,000 free and pay-per-view streams and on-demand video clips.
It works with a range of partners in the soccer space, helping them to reach new audiences and monetise their content. OneFootball says that several partners, including the Argentine Football Association (AFA) and players Alphonso Davies, Raphaël Varane, and Sadio Mané are among those planning to launch digital collectibles via its platform.
Items and collectibles will be available at multiple price points and can be bought and stored with just an email and a credit card, simplifying a process which has traditionally required an understanding of digital wallets.
Animoca Brands chief executive Yat Siu will join both the boards of OneFootball and OneFootball Labs, while Dapper Labs will provide the Flow blockchain infrastructure and services that will power the planned Web 3.0 services. This includes the recently-announced Aera NFT marketplace.
“Over the last year, the sporting universe has made progress in harnessing the potential of NFTs and gaming, offering fans new digital experiences based on the important principles of true digital ownership and decentralisation,” said Siu. “Bringing Web 3.0 to the biggest sport in the world – soccer- through our participation in the OneFootball Labs joint venture is a match made in heaven.”
“We are excited to team up with OneFootball to bring the biggest sport in the world to our growing Flow ecosystem,” added Mik Naayem, chief business officer and co-founder at Dapper Labs. “The potential of introducing more than 100 million users to relevant NFTs for the first time has the potential to be truly groundbreaking. We see this as a catalyst for mass scale Web 3.0 adoption for the whole industry.”
