Lionel Messi Invests in Web3 Gaming Startup Matchday via $21 Million Round

With a bigger war chest, Matchday is hoping to attract more soccer fans into blockchain gaming with FIFA-licensed titles for casual gamers.

Mar 13, 2023
by Akira Ming
Lionel Messi Invests in Web3 Gaming Startup Matchday via $21 Million Round
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Meet Matchday - the latest fantasy football game backed by Messi

Matchday, a Web3 soccer game studio, has raised $21 million in seed funding to create a suite of games for football fans. 

Lionel Messi's venture capital firm Play Time, as well as Courtside Ventures, Greylock, HackVC, Capricorn Investment Group, and Horizons Ventures, participated in the round. Matchday has also appointed Alexia Putellas, a Spanish soccer star, as its founding global ambassador.

Like Sorare, Matchday is a free-to-play fantasy football game where users can play, collect, and trade NFT player cards. Upon sign-up, everyone will receive a deck of player cards that can be used to compete against each other.

Matchday is an official partner of FIFA, the highest governing body of football, and FIFPRO, a football player union representing 65,000 professional footballers. Through these collaborations, the company intends to bring tens of thousands of officially licensed footballers and tournaments into Matchday games, fully optimized for casual gamers. 

"Our games will be accessible for all players and centered around true ownership of digital items that will be a point of pride for all players," said Sebastien de Halleux, Matchday's Chief Gaming Officer. De Halleux was previously an executive at Electronic Arts, where he worked on the company's FIFA game and the Madden NFT franchises.

Messi's journey in Web3

Prior to getting involved with Matchday, Messi had dabbled in the NFT space for quite some time. The soccer legend is a brand ambassador for Sorare, an NFT fantasy soccer game, and Socios, a fan token platform, having invested in the former and signing a $20 million endorsement deal with the latter. He has also launched his official NFT collection on the Ethernity Chain platform. 

Now that Messi is a key investor, many are excited to see what new and exciting gameplay Matchday will offer. Matchday Squad, the company's first blockchain game, is set to release in Q2 2023.  

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