Start-up Sorare, which is banking on emerging NFT technology to create an online game for exchanging football player stickers, announced on Tuesday that it had raised $ 680 million (580 million euros), a new record for the tech sector in France.

With a valuation of 4.3 billion dollars (3.7 billion euros), the Parisian company, founded in 2018, now claims the first place of French “unicorns” (unlisted companies worth more than one billion).

“Our ambition is to create the world's leading sports entertainment group,” said company co-founder Nicolas Julia.

"This amount allows us to focus on our product until a potential IPO within a few years," he added.

In this game, which uses blockchain technology, users can buy and sell images of players whose value depends on performance in real matches.

We've raised $ 680 million Series B. 🚀



A huge thank you to our passionate community who continue to propel Sorare across the globe.

🌍



📕 Our co-founder & CEO @ ni2las shares what this means for #Sorare in his blog!

Read it here ⬇️ https://t.co/iyXTSf9O16

- Sorare (@SorareHQ) September 21, 2021

The company now wants to develop internationally

Sorare claims more than 250,000 active players, including between 30,000 and 40,000 who have a player card in the form of NFT, that is to say whose rarity is guaranteed.

The fundraising brought together various funds (Atomico, Bessemer Ventures, Blisce, D1 Capital, Eurazeo, IVP and Liontree), as well as historical investors (Benchmark, Accel, Partech) who had already enabled the company to raise 40 million euros in March, according to a statement.

The distribution of capital has not been specified, but the two co-founders of the company remain "majority", indicated Nicolas Julia.

The operation is carried out by Softbank, the Japanese conglomerate already in the maneuver in the previous record dating from May 2021, which had allowed the specialist in Web ContentSquare to raise 500 million dollars.

Sorare has never advertised yet, but relied on the fame of some of his investors, including players Gerard Piqué, Rio Ferdinand, Antoine Griezmann and César Azpilicueta, who became shareholders.

Thanks to this investment, the company wants to expand internationally (it is currently opening an office in the United States), recruit specialists in the growth of the user base, and expand into new sports.

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