[Funding alert] Indian cricket NFT startup FanCraze secures $100M to expand cricket metaverse

FanCraze, an NFT startup, on Thursday has raised $100 million in a funding round led by venture capital companies including Insight Partners and B Capital Group.

Other investors including Mirae Financial, Tiger Global, Coatue Management, Sequoia Capital India, Courtside Ventures, and Cristiano Ronaldo's CR7 were part of the funding round, according to Economic Times.

As per the earlier reports by CapTable, the amount raised by the startup has turned out to be one of the largest Series A funding rounds. The company intends to use the funds raised to expand its cricket metaverse and the firm extends its tech-centric offering to enhance the overall fan experience.

Its first set of NFTs was launched in the month of January and some of the popular NFTs included MS Dhoni's six at the Wankhede stadium in the 2011 World Cup, Yuvraj Singh's unforgettable six sixes, and Sachin Tendulkar hitting the ball out of the ground in a stand-off against Pakistan in the 2003 World Cup.

The current partners of the company include ICC, Cricket West Indies (CWI), and cricketers Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Muthiah Muralidaran, Jonty Rhodes, Shikhar Dhawan, Andre Russell, Ravichandran Ashwin, and Yuzvendra Chahal.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has signed a contract with the startup to create exclusive cricket NFTs and the platform is built on the Flow blockchain, that is used to support NBA Top Shot. NFTs are stored, exchanged, and acquired on the Flow blockchain.NBA Top Shot became so popular and now it has over 600 users, including Mark Cuban, Tyrese Haliburton, and other celebrities.

NFT startups are gaining traction. In the month of January, OpenSea , the largest NFT marketplace, raised $300 million in series C funding led by Paradigm and Coatue, and in the month of March Solana's premier NFT platform Magic Eden raised $27 million in Series A funding.