Lionel Messi Supported The Launch Of The Soccer Game Web3 Matchday With $21 Mln

Matchday, the Web3 soccer startup, has announced it has raised $21 mln in seed funding to develop a suite of games featuring soccer legend Lionel Messi's venture capital firm. Messi's Play Time firm backed the startup, and Courtside Ventures, Greylock, HackVC, Capricorn Investment Group and Horizons Ventures also took part in the round.

Lionel MESSI is a brand ambassador for the famous fantasy soccer game $NFT Sorare, as well as the Socios fan token platform; Messi invested in the first and signed a $20 mln contract with the second. He has also released his own official $NFT collectibles through the Ethernity Chain platform.

Previously, Matchday released a time-limited mini-game during the 2022 FIFA World Cup and distributed 2 mln player cards in the form of NFTs to approximately 600,000 users. In 2021, Sorare raised $680 mln at a $4.3 bln valuation and secured hundreds of team and league licenses and expanded into other sports. FIFA launched the $NFT platform on Algorand last fall, and dozens of teams have issued Socios fan tokens, which sometimes rise or fall in price based on their performance on the pitch

Image: Socios