NFT news: Fantasy football game raises $680 Million led by Softbank

The latest update in the NFT sphere saw the fantasy football game, Sorare raise the exceptional amount of $680 million in a funding round led by SoftBank. Furthermore, players such as ex-England international Rio Ferdinand and Spain’s Gerard Pique are also investing.

The NFT fantasy football game’s valuation has hiked up to $4.3 billion since its success in SoftBank’s funding round. SoftBank shared that this funding round marks their first-ever Sorare investment through its SoftBank Vision Fund 2.

“We think NFTs represent a new paradigm in the collectability, usability, and engagement with assets…This evolution from physical assets to digital assets is very powerful and creates a lot of exciting potential business models.”, the president of SoftBank Group International, Michel Combes told Reuters.

Sorare revealed its plans to expand its business globally, starting from setting up shop in the US. Sorare is popular as an online game where players can purchase registered cards representing football legends and build teams that then play against each other, with the outcome based on the players’ performance in real-life games. However, Sorare wants to move past merely dominating the football arena and step into other sports as well.

“We saw the immense potential that blockchain and NFTs brought to unlock a new way for football clubs, footballers, and their fans to experience a deeper connection with each other… We believe this is a huge opportunity to create the next sports entertainment giant.”, said Nicolas Julia, CEO, and co-founder of Sorare.

NFT liquidity protocol raises $3M

The NFT sphere has established a tight grip on its upwards ride of trend lines. Overnight, Taker Protocol, a crypto liquidity protocol for NFTs, raised the massive amount of $3 million in a funding round led by Electric Capital, with DCG, Ascentive Assets, Dragonfly Capital, Spartan Group, The LAO, Sfermion, and Morningstar Ventures.

The NFT liquidity protocol revealed that the funds will be used to facilitate infrastructure for new financial primitives into the NFT market. According to CoinGape’s coverage, the Taker Protocol aims to solve liquidity issues by allowing lenders and borrowers to liquidate and rent assets that aren’t cryptocurrencies and create new liquidity streams and opportunities.