The Spanish football club FC Barcelona has secured an investment of EUR 120 million (USD 132 million) from Libero Football Finance AG and Nipa Capital B.V. for its Web3 initiative, Barça Vision.
FC Barcelona has been heavily involved in creating non-fungible token collections over the past year. On August 11th, the club announced the sale of a 29.5% stake in Bridgeburg Invest, the holding company of Barça Vision, in exchange for the capital. “Barça Vision is the Club’s initiative to group all actions associated with Web3, NFTs, and the Metaverse that are part of the Club’s strategy to build the Espai Barça Digital,” the statement read.
Libero is a publicly-traded German company that advises football clubs on financial matters, while Nipa Capital is a venture capital firm based in the Netherlands. The sale of the stake in Bridgeburg Invest was carried out in accordance with the authorization of FC Barcelona’s General Assembly of Members held on October 23, 2021.
Since February 2020, FC Barcelona has partnered with blockchain Chiliz to create the Ethereum-based BAR fan token for its sports franchise. In August 2022, Chiliz announced that it had purchased a 24.5% stake in FC Barcelona’s digital content creation arm, Barça Studios, for USD 100 million.
In May, FC Barcelona launched its inaugural NFT collection with Plastiks. Named “Unleash Your Passion,” the collection features 3,000 animal-themed NFTs priced at USD 30 each, which, according to the club, will contribute to “eliminating 35,000,000 kilograms of plastic from the planet.”
Subsequently, in July 2022, the football club sold its first NFT “Masterpiece #1 In a way” at Sotheby’s New York auction for USD 693,000. The second collectible in the series, “Masterpiece #2 – Empowerment,” inspired by Alexia Putellas, was sold on OpenSea on June 28, 2023, for USD 300,231.