FC Barcelona secures $132 investment for blockchain and NFT venture

Spanish shot nine FC Barcelona has secured a €120 cardinal ($132 million) concern from Libero Football Finance AG and Nipa Capital B.V. for its Web3 inaugural Barça Vision.

According to the Aug. 11 announcement, FC Barcelona sold a 29.5% involvement successful Bridgeburg Invest, the holding institution for Barça Vision, successful speech for the capital. "Barça Vision is the Club's inaugural to integrate each integer contented astir Web3 and blockchain including nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and metaverse, which are portion of the Club's strategy to physique the integer Espai Barça," developers wrote.

Libero is simply a publically listed institution successful Germany consulting shot clubs connected fiscal matters. Nipa Capital is simply a task superior steadfast domiciled successful the Netherlands. The transaction is taxable to the support of FC Barcelona shareholders and is expected to adjacent successful Q4 2023.

Since February 2020, FC Barcelona has partnered with the Chiliz blockchain to make Ethereum-based BAR instrumentality tokens for its sports franchise. In August 2022, Chiliz announced it had purchased a 24.5% involvement successful FC Barcelona's integer contented instauration limb Barça Vision for $100 million. 

In May, FC Barcelona launched its archetypal inaugural NFT postulation with Plastiks. Dubbed "Unleash Your Passion," the postulation features 3,000 animal-themed NFTs astatine a terms of $30 each that the nine says volition lend to "removing 35,000,000 kilograms of integrative from our planet."

Subsequently, successful July 2022, the shot nine sold its archetypal NFT "Masterpiece #1 In a way" astatine Sotheby's New York auction for $693,000. The 2nd collectible successful the series, Masterpiece #2 - Empowerment, was sold connected OpenSea connected June 28, 2023, for $300,231.