In the space of one week, tokenized sport collectibles projects have received about $930 billion in financing. Dapper Labs intends to launch more licensed collectibles in music, entertainment and other sports.
Dapper Labs, the company behind the Flow blockchain and the wildly famous tokenized basketball collectable, NBA TopShot, announced a new investment round led by tech-focused hedge fund Coatue on Sept. 22.
Sorare, a French-based soccer trading card game producer, raised $680 million in Series B funding spearheaded by Japanese fintech giant Softbank, according to Cointelegraph on Wednesday. The fundraising round increased the company’s valuation to $4.3 billion.
The combined capital for the two companies totals $930 million, indicating a huge bet on the sports token industry at a time when several commentators are declaring the nonfungible market dead due to low sales volume and low floor pricing.
About Dapper Labs
The latest $250 million deal follows Dapper Labs’ previous funding rounds of $305 million and $65 million in 2021. While the company did not provide a detailed roadmap following the launch, it has hinted that more projects may be added to the Flow blockchain in the near future.
The money will be used to fund more licensed NFT projects in sports, music, and entertainment, as well as expand the NBA Top Shot platform, according to Dapper Labs.
Google said earlier this month that it had worked with Dapper to support the development of NFT and web 3.0 products on its blockchain.
Since its public launch in October of last year, Dapper’s NBA Top Shot has been a huge hit, with data from CryptoSlam indicating that the NFTs have sold for more than $716 million on secondary markets.
However, it appears that the project’s buzz has died down in recent months, with secondary sales failing to reach $50 million in any month since April.
This is less than a quarter of the volume seen during the peak months of Top Shot NFT trading in February and March, when secondary sales totaled $224 million and $220 million, respectively.
The most valuable Top Shot moments, according to CryptSlam estimations, are the NFTs representing LeBron James, with a combined market cap of $104 million for 114,114 James NFTs.
Sorare’s expansion in the NFTs space
Sorare’s $680 million fundraising round follows a $50 million Series A deal in February, indicating a parabolic ascent for the platform in 2021. Sorare has laid up ambitious ambitions for the new cash in the coming months.
The firm’s goal in soccer is to work with the top 20 professional soccer leagues throughout the world, as well as the top 50 international football associations for men’s and women’s teams.
So far, 177 clubs from 36 local and international leagues have signed licensing agreements with the Sorare platform. The company reached a significant milestone earlier this month when it agreed to provide tokens for all players from all 20 teams in the Spanish La Liga.
The money will also be utilized to scale up marketing efforts, hire key personnel, build its first US office, and expand its NFT collectible model into other sports.
In April of this year, the Sorare platform was released. Despite having a year on the market, NBA Top Shot’s NFTs have earned a substantially smaller sum, with $84.8 million in secondary market sales.
Sales peaked at $15.34 million in March before declining for the next three months. In July and August, however, secondary sales increased by $8.8 million and $14.8 million, respectively.
Sorare NFTs have generated $10.5 million in sales with eight days left in September, indicating that sales may exceed $14 million for the second month in a row.
