Matchday, a soccer-focused Web3 gaming startup, announced today that it has obtained $21 million in seed funding to develop a collection of games, with Lionel Messi’s venture capital firm on board.
Messi’s Play Time, along with Courtside Ventures, Greylock, HackVC, Capricorn Investment Group, and Horizons Ventures, provided money for the startup. Alexia Putellas, a Spanish soccer player, is the first global ambassador for Matchday.
The great soccer star, who presently plays for Paris Saint-Germain F.C. and recently led Argentina to victory at the 2022 FIFA World Cup, has already made several moves in the NFT market.
Matchday’s games NFTs
Messi made an investment in the popular NFT fantasy soccer game Sorare and signed a $20 million sponsorship deal with the fan token platform Socios. He is an ambassador for both brands. Also, he has made available via the Ethernity Chain system his own official NFT collectibles.
The FIFA and FIFPRO player associations have granted Matchday an official license. Matchday’s co-founder and chief executive officer, Derrick Ko, said in a statement that the games would be designed for “casual” gamers.
Ko declared, “We are building for an underrepresented football community audience.
Sebastien de Halleux, the chief gaming officer at Matchday, was previously a senior executive at Electronic Arts (EA), where he worked on the company’s FIFA and Madden NFT franchises.
De Halleux remarked in a statement, “Our games will be accessible to all players and will emphasize the actual ownership of digital objects, which will be a source of pride for all players.
In Web3 gaming, such “digital commodities” are typically registered on-chain as NFTs, which are unique blockchain tokens that represent ownership over digital assets such as in-game characters, skins, or equipment. Before the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Matchday created a limited-time mini-game and gave two million NFT player cards to about 600,000 people.
Lionel Messi and the world of web3
Lionel Messi named the first global ambassador of his NFT collection last March.
Fan tokens like those on Socios can be used as collectibles and as a blockchain-backed membership card or VIP ticket for a wide range of freebies, activations, and live experiences with sports organizations. The more tokens a fan possesses, the more they can vote on club uniforms, stadium design, and charity efforts, especially in world football.
This Messi crypto sale proves the great fan token experiment is sustainable. Socios and its Chiliz token ($CHZ) have had spectacular early returns:
Content Source: decrypt.com