Reports have come in that the French-based Sorare, an NFT platform, and trading card developer, is near $532 million funding with a valuation of $3.8 billion.
Anonymous sources from Businesses Insider have reported that the Japanese telecommunications giant Softbank, is expected to be leading the latest funding round. Atomico, the European venture capital firm, is also reported to be participating in the funding round with SoftBank.
The round is expected to be supported by a mix of backers including the European investment firm Eurazeo alongside Blisce, the capital growth fund founded by the French entrepreneur Alexandre Mars.
Founded in 2018, Sorare’s NFT-based soccer trading cards currently have 142 licensed teams from the top leagues around the world. these teams include Liverpool from the English Premier League, Paris Saint-German from Ligue 1, Real Madrid of the La Liga in Spain, and Bayern Munich from German Bundesliga.
Nicholas Julia, the CEO of Sorare, has been reported to deny that a funding round was being conducted, contradicting Insider’s anonymous sources who claim the funding round was almost finalized. Meanwhile, SoftBank and Atomico have not yet commented on the reports.
If confirmed, Sorare will gain a drastic rise in 2021 with half of a billion-dollar funding round. Sorare is ranked at 6 in the list of top NFT collectable projects and has met $12.37 million of sales volumes from 9251 traders in the past 30 days, according to DappRader. The firm has also been shown to perform well in secondary markets, rolling with $6.4 million in sales on a 30-day average, according to CryptoSlam.
The firm has been reported to have established its first national team licensing deals in June. Sorare established a partnership with German and French national teams during the 2020 European Championship
