Rario, a cricket NFT platform based in Singapore, has received $120 million in funding headed by Dream Capital. Alpha Wave Global was also a member of the Series A financing round.
Animoca Brands, Presight Capital, and Kingsway Capital are among Rario’s current investors.
Rario stated:
“We are pleased to announce that we have raised $120M Series A Funding led by Dream Capital. 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.”
Since its inception in 2021, the project has sold over 50,000 NFTs in 20 countries, with the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and India serving as the company’s primary markets.
Rario is a digital collectibles platform for cricket lovers built on the Polygon network. Members can collect, trade, and play using legally sanctioned cricket NFTs on the blockchain.
Dream Capital, the corporate venture and M&A arm of fantasy sports giant Dream Sports, has made its first investment in the blockchain and Web3 field with this transaction.
Dream Sports set aside $250 million in August 2021 for Dream Capital to invest in “sports, gaming, and fitness-tech” enterprises with ticket prices ranging from $1 million to $100 million or more. Rario is the company’s ninth investment, joining DreamGameStudios, SoStronk, Elevar, FanCode, Fittr, and KheloMore in the portfolio.
Dev Bajaj, the CSO of Dream Sports’, declared:
“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.”
Global sports NFT trading is expected to exceed $2 billion in 2022, according to Deloitte’s Technology, Media, and Telecommunications (TMT) Predictions 2022. Cricket and Bollywood, respectively, are expected to boost the Indian sports and entertainment NFT market to $1 billion in the near future.
“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.”