FanCraze, the digital collectibles company, announced it has raised $100 million funding led by Insight Partners, a New York-based global private equity and venture capital firm, with participation from B Capital, according to ETtech report.
The newly raised capital will be used to fund the expansion of the company’s metaverse across the cricket landscape for current and emerging partners, the statement said.
Mirae Financial, Tiger Global, Coatue Management, Sequoia Capital India, Courtside Ventures, and Cristiano Ronaldo’s CR7 also invested in the funding round.
FanCraze is founded by Wall Street veteran Anshum Bhambri, founding operating chief of the Indian Premier League and former Reliance Sports CEO Sundar Raman, and serial entrepreneur Kushagra Kohli.
“NFTs are fast becoming a movement and are enabling a direct relationship between all types of IP owners and their fans. NFTs represent culture and FanCraze is building an experience that would enable fans to collect cricket NFTs, engage with play-to-earn games and utilities, and own digital land,” said Anshum Bhambri, chief executive officer of FanCraze.
The company plans to use the proceeds to integrate new sports relationships and to accelerate the growth of its global team, R&D lab, user experience team, gaming studio, and marketplace platform where fans can buy, trade, and craft their NFTs.
Funds will also be used to scale the company’s engineering, marketing, and customer success teams as the company expands its tech-centric offering to build the overall fan experience.
“We are thrilled to back FanCraze, which is augmenting the power of NFTs to give higher freedom, economic incentives, and thrill to fans. It can become a powerful mechanism to onboard new users in the Web3 space, where we have made multiple investments in the past,” said Kabir Narang, founding general partner at B Capital.
The company’s current partners include the ICC, Cricket West Indies (CWI), and cricketers including Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Muthiah Muralidaran, Jonty Rhodes, Shikhar Dhawan, Andre Russell, Ravichandran Ashwin, and Yuzvendra Chahal.
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