The football club has been interested in creating collections of non-fungible tokens for the majority of the past year.
Barca Vision, the club’s Web3 initiative, has received an investment of 120 million euros ($132 million) from Libero Football Finance AG and Nipa Capital B.V.
F.C. Barcelona reportedly sold a 29.5% stake in Bridgeburg Invest, the holding company for Barca Vision, in exchange for capital on August 11. Developers wrote, “Barça Vision is the Club’s initiative to integrate all digital content around Web3 and blockchain including NFTs and metaverse, which are part of the Club’s strategy to build the digital Espai Barça,”.
Libero is a publicly traded German corporation advising soccer clubs on financial matters. The Dutch venture capital firm Nipa Capital is headquartered in the Netherlands. The transaction is contingent on F.C. Barcelona shareholder approval and is anticipated to conclude in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Since February 2020, F.C. Barcelona has collaborated with the Chiliz blockchain to develop F.C. Barcelona Fan Tokens (BAR) on the Ethereum blockchain for its sports franchise. Chiliz announced in August 2022 that it had acquired a 24.5% stake in Barca Vision, the digital content creation subsidiary of F.C. Barcelona, for $100 million.
In May, FC Barcelona and Plastiks released their first NFT collection. “Unleash Your Passion” is a collection of 3,000 animal-themed NFTs priced at $30 each that, according to the club, will help “remove 35,000,000 kilograms of plastic from our planet.”
Subsequently, in July 2022, the football club sold its first NFT, “Masterpiece #1 In A Way”, at Sotheby’s New York for $693,000. “Masterpiece #2 – Empowerment,” the second collectible in the series, was sold on OpenSea on June 28, 2023, for $300,231.
✅| OFFICIAL: FC Barcelona reaches an agreement with Libero Football Finance and private investment advisors NIPA Capital BV to become new partners of Bridgeburg Invest, a Barça Vision trademark.
These investors have acquired 29.5% of the ownership of Barça Vision for €120m,… pic.twitter.com/4aWCMO8iA1
— Barça Buzz (@Barca_Buzz) August 11, 2023