Matchday, a San Francisco, CA- and Barcelona, Spain-based company combining video games, sports and web3 building an ecosystem of casual football (soccer) games, raised $21M in Seed funding.
Backers included Courtside Ventures, Greylock, HackVC, Capricorn Investment Group and Horizons Ventures.
Led by CEO Derrick Ko, Matchday builds games for football fans featuring officially licensed players and tournaments, in partnership with FIFA and FIFPRO. The company, incubated by Leo Messi’s Play Time, has already signed a multi-year partnership with FIFA to bring world-class tournaments, including the Men’s and Women’s World Cup, professional football leagues, and male and female football ambassadors, into a new suite of video games to launch this year. As FIFPRO’s official blockchain partner, Matchday is able to provide players with real ownership of the cards and other digital items that they have acquired as they collect, trade and grow their dream team. Upcoming releases include Matchday Play and Matchday Squads, which build upon a casual football management experience.
The company has already launched the limited-time Matchday Challenge: FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Edition, which coincided with the recent World Cup. The mini-game saw nearly 600,000 signups with two million player cards distributed.
The team also includes Chief Gaming Officer Sebastien de Halleux, Executive Chairman Razmig Hovaghimian and CTO Benny Wong.