Tiger Global led a $17.4 million seed round for Faze Technologies, the company announced Wednesday.
Faze also announced its partnership with the International Cricket Council (ICC) to launch a cricket non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace on the Flow blockchain, where NBA Top Shot captured mainstream attention earlier this year.
Faze CEO Anshum Bhambri said in a press release he hopes to use the partnership “to build the metaverse for cricket.”
Flow builder Dapper Labs, major Dapper backer Coatue, Sequoia Capital India, SamsungNext, Courtside Ventures and Sacramento Kings owner Vivek Ranadive also invested.
Faze’s cricket marketplace will mimic Top Shot’s use of present-day and historical moments, the company said in a press release. It also plans to build a “play-to-earn universe” involving the “battling of NFTs.”
It’s not the first cricket NFT platform to hit the market. Polygon-based Rario launched in August with a pair of cricket leagues signed on.
Through an earlier project, Round Labs, Bhambri appears to have rolled out a minimum viable product of sorts involving cricket NFTs, but on the Ethereum blockchain.
“We’re excited to be partnering with Faze to launch the ultimate cricket fan experience with the ICC on Flow,” Dapper Labs CEO Roham Gharegozlou said in a press release. “With over one billion cricket fans across ICC’s 105 member nations, Faze is revolutionizing how cricket fans everywhere connect and engage with some of the greatest moments in cricket history.”
Dapper Labs announced a $250 million funding round in September at a $7.6 billion valuation.
