FC Barcelona, the renowned Spanish soccer club, has sealed a significant investment worth 120 million euros (approximately $132 million) for its pioneering Web3 endeavor, Barça Vision.
The landmark deal was revealed on August 11 and entails Libero Football Finance AG and Nipa Capital B.V. as the investing entities.
The transaction’s crux involves FC Barcelona trading a 29.5% ownership interest in Bridgeburg Invest, the parent company overseeing Barça Vision, in return for the substantial capital infusion.
This strategic move is aimed at propelling the Club’s ambitious Barça Vision initiative, which seeks to seamlessly amalgamate all facets of digital content within the realms of Web3 and blockchain.
Notably, this includes the burgeoning domains of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and the metaverse, pivotal components in the Club’s blueprint for erecting the digital haven of Espai Barça.
Libero Football Finance AG, a publicly traded firm based in Germany, is well-regarded for its expertise in advising soccer clubs on financial matters.
In a complementary fashion, Nipa Capital B.V., a venture capital entity headquartered in the Netherlands, contributes to this investment partnership.
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However, it is worth noting that the completion of this transaction is contingent upon the approval of FC Barcelona’s shareholders and is anticipated to finalize in the fourth quarter of 2023.
FC Barcelona’s voyage into the realm of blockchain and digital assets commenced in February 2020, with a collaboration with Chiliz blockchain, resulting in the creation of FC Barcelona Fan Tokens (BAR) on the Ethereum platform.
The partnership’s ascendancy saw Chiliz’s acquisition of a 24.5% stake in Barça Vision’s digital content arm for a sum of $100 million in August 2022.
Notably, FC Barcelona has actively ventured into the world of NFTs.
In May, the Club’s debut NFT collection, named “Unleash Your Passion,” was launched in collaboration with Plastiks.
This compilation, encompassing 3,000 NFTs, was priced at $30 each and carried an eco-conscious theme, vowing to aid in the reduction of 35,000,000 kilograms of plastic waste from the planet.
Building on this momentum, FC Barcelona accomplished remarkable milestones in the NFT arena. The Club’s inaugural NFT, “Masterpiece #1 In A Way,” was auctioned at Sotheby’s New York in July 2022, fetching a staggering $693,000.
Subsequently, the sequel to this series, titled “Masterpiece #2 – Empowerment,” was traded on the OpenSea platform on June 28, 2023, for an impressive sum of $300,231.
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