Ronaldo Among Participants in Cricket NFT FanCraze's Fundraise

FanCraze is raising around $100 million in a new funding round from backers, including Cristiano Ronaldo, sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.

The Series A funding round for the online trading platform officially licensed for digital cricket collectables, led by venture capital firms B Capital Group and Insight Partners. 

The funding round for the previously known Faze Technologies has also attracted South Korea’s Mirae Asset, sources said.

They also added that an announcement could be made in the coming weeks, and details of the fundraising, such as size, could still change as deliberations continue.

According to Bloomberg, further details and comments are yet to be made by the companies involved in the funding round.

FanCraze was co-founded in 2021 by Stanford University alumnus and former investment banker Anshum Bhambri and two others.

The company’s journey into the digital cricket collectables started after it won a partnership deal with the International Cricket Council, the sport’s official governing body.

The partnership allowed FanCraze to create exclusive cricket non-fungible tokens on the Flow blockchain.

According to its website, FanCraze released its first packs of NFTs and launched the marketplace in January.

A press release on Dapper’s website showed that FanCraze raised $17.4 million in seed funding led by Tiger Global Management, with participation from Coatue and Sequoia Capital India and Dapper Labs last year.