Singapore-headquartered cricket NFT platform Rario has bagged $120 million in funding led by Dream Capital. The Series A funding round also saw the participation of Alpha Wave Global.
Founded in 2011, Rario’s existing investors include Animoca Brands, Presight Capital, and Kingsway Capital.
“We are pleased to announce that we have raised $120M Series A Funding led by Dream Capital….,” Rario tweeted on Thursday, with a link to the Rario blog where the company had put out a formal statement.
“With Dream Capital’s investment, Rario now gets access to Dream Sports’ 140 Million users, who will be offered FIAT-only products in India, with the potential to create the largest cricket NFT platform globally,” Rario said.
Since 2021, the project has sold over 50,000 NFTs across 20 countries, with The USA, UK, Australia, and India being the company’s top markets.
Built on the Polygon network, Rario is a digital collectibles platform for cricket fans. It lets members “collect, trade and play with officially licensed cricket NFTs on the blockchain.”
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Dream Capital’s First Investment in Web3
With this, Dream Capital, the corporate venture and M&A arm of fantasy sports major Dream Sports makes its first investment in the blockchain and Web3 space.
In August 2021, Dream Sports earmarked $250 million for Dream Capital to invest in “sports, gaming, and fitness-tech” businesses with ticket sizes ranging from $1 million to $100 million-plus. Rario is the ninth startup in its investment portfolio which also includes DreamGameStudios, SoStronk, Elevar, FanCode, Fittr, and KheloMore.
Commenting on the investment, Dream Sports’ Chief Strategy Officer Dev Bajaj, said, “DreamCap is glad to partner with Rario to help sports fans engage deeper with their favorite players and teams. Web3 use cases in sports are transformational, and we are looking to back more startups in the space globally with innovative utilities of NFTs.”
Sports NFT Forecast to Grow to $2 Billion in 2022
Deloitte’s Technology, Media, and Telecommunications (TMT) Predictions 2022 has forecasted that global sports NFT trade will cross $2 billion in 2022. It also predicted that the Indian sports and entertainment NFT market will grow to $1 billion soon, driven by cricket and Bollywood, respectively.
“With more than 500 million cricket fans in India, and Bollywood…, an NFT marketplace for just cinema and sports in India has the potential to cross $1 billion in value in the near future,” the Delloite study said.
Last week, fantasy sports platform Rage.Fan signed famous Indian cricketer Dinesh Karthik as its brand ambassador.
“Rage.Fan will be bringing in a lot of exciting opportunities for crypto & fantasy sports fans. They will be one among the first to offer players a chance to acquire action cards as NFTs to earn more rewards in the game,” the press release from the company said.
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