Sorare raises $50M Series A to transform football fandom

“Football is the only denominator common to all people, the only universal Esperanto . . . A world language, whose grammar is unchanging from the North Pole to the Equator.” — Jean Eskenazi

Before I was an entrepreneur, I was a football fan. My football journey started in 1998 when France hosted and won the World-Cup. I completed my first sticker album that summer with Zidane, Ronaldo and Bierhoff. It brought me closer to my passion, closer to the game and closer to my friends. Collecting those stickers created meaningful connections that I have to this day.

Fast forward to 2018, and my co-founder Adrien and I discovered an exciting new technology that enabled the act of digital collecting: non-fungible tokens. The creation of unique digital scarcity was revolutionary. As football fans, as collectors, we envisioned a digital experience where football fans could collect, trade and connect with the beautiful game in a whole new way.

Supported by a world-class team

Today, Sorare is one step closer to making this vision a reality. We’re excited to share the news that we’ve raised a $50 million Series A funding. We’re fortunate to be working with Benchmark, one of the best early-stage venture capital firms in the world. They add Sorare to a list of innovative companies they have backed such as Twitter, Snap, Instagram and Discord.

This round was led by Benchmark with participation from Accel and additional investment from a team of world-class investors including Antoine Griezmann, Rio Ferdinand, Oliver Bierhoff, Alexis Ohanian and Gary Vaynerchuck.

We’ll be using this new funding to propel our vision forward. Our mission is to create “The game within The game”. We are transforming online football fandom and giving fans like us the power to own the game they love.

Specifically, the funds will help us to:

Accelerate the hiring of a world-class team
Onboard the top 20 football leagues in the world
Launch a mobile application

More importantly, these funds will serve to delight our current and future community. Clubs, footballers and fans are at the heart of the game. We’re designing an experience where fans can celebrate, share, and live football moments at a deeper connection. We’re making fantasy football a reality.

A New Era — Digital collectibles with Utility

15 years ago, buying a virtual sword in a game felt crazy. Today, collecting digital cards feels excitingly avant-garde. The growing convergence between our lives offline and online has resulted in a frenzy of excitement around digital collectibles. NFT collectibles encapsulate culture, status and sentiment and are a reflection of the times we live in.

Blockchain technology gives Sorare cards superpowers. We are building more than collectibles. Our digital cards have a utility that can be used in our global fantasy football games and myriads of games. The potential is limitless and we can’t wait to see the amazing football projects that are built around Sorare cards!

Backed by a World-Class Community

More than anything, we’re thankful for the thousands of people that have supported us on our journey so far. The community stalwart SorareData, and the more recent third-party apps being built by our community (SorareMega, SorareBuzz and many others) are amazing to see. At Sorare, we’re proud and humbled to be football fans alongside each and every one of you.

If our mission excites you and would like to contribute significantly to our journey: we’re hiring! We’re a team of 12 people, anyone who joins will have a massive impact.

Check out our open positions here.