Rario, an NFT platform devoted to cricket, mentioned on Thursday it had raised $120 million in sequence A funding. The spherical was led by the enterprise capital arm of Indian fantasy sports activities agency Dream Sports activities.
With the brand new funding, and a partnership with Dream, the agency will now supply cricket-themed NFTs to Dream Sports activities’ 140 million customers in India. Given regulatory scrutiny in the direction of cryptocurrencies in India, the platform will solely settle for fiat, not crypto, it mentioned in a blog post.
Earlier traders in Rario embody enterprise capital companies Presight and Kingsway, in addition to blockchain gaming main Animoca Manufacturers.
Rario corners the cricket NFT market
The Singapore-based firm claims to have the most important share of cricket NFT rights globally. It lately signed a multi-year, unique partnership with Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricketers’ Affiliation.
The agency additionally has unique partnerships with 6 worldwide cricket leagues, together with the rights to over 900 cricketers.
Rario mentioned it has offered over 50,000 tokens since its launch, with the USA, UK, Australia and India being its top-four markets.
Ankit Wadhwa, co-founder of Rario, mentioned that cricket is the second-largest sport on the earth, with over 1.5 billion followers.
Cricket an untapped market?
Whereas sports activities tokens are usually not a novel idea, the house has been largely dominated by basketball or soccer. The Nationwide Basketball Affiliation (NBA) is without doubt one of the largest gamers within the sports activities NFT market, with its Prime Shot NFT market seeing gross sales of practically $1 billion since its 2021 launch.
The NBA has additionally ventured into creating dynamic NFTs, though the mission has met its personal set of issues.
A number of European soccer golf equipment additionally capitalized on the rising reputation of NFTs. English Liverpool lately launched a group of hero-themed NFTs.
However cricket has not seen related forays, regardless of the game having huge followings throughout Asia, Australia and Africa. Rario might be poised to capitalize on this untapped market by providing cricket-themed collectibles.
