Spanish football club FC Barcelona has received an investment of €120 million ($132 million) from Libero Football Finance AG and Nipa Capital BV for its Web3 initiative Barça Vision.
According to the August 11 announcement, FC Barcelona has sold 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 integrate all digital content around Web3 and blockchain, including nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and metaverse, which are part of the club’s strategy to build the digital Espai Barça,” the developers wrote .
Libero is a listed company in Germany that advises football clubs on financial matters. Nipa Capital is a Dutch based venture capital firm. The transaction is subject to FC Barcelona shareholder approval and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Since February 2020, FC Barcelona has partnered with the Chiliz blockchain to create Ethereum-based BAR fan tokens for its sports franchise. In August 2022, Chiliz announced that it had purchased a 24.5% stake in Barça Vision, the digital content creation division of FC Barcelona, for $100 million.
In May, FC Barcelona launched its first inaugural NFT collection with Plastiks. Dubbed “Unleash Your Passion,” the collection features 3,000 animal-themed NFTs priced at $30 each that the club says will help “remove 35,000,000 pounds of plastic from our planet.”
Then in July 2022, the football club sold its first NFT “Masterpiece #1 In a way” at Sotheby’s New York auction for $693,000. The second collectible in the series, Masterpiece #2 – Empowerment, sold on OpenSea on June 28, 2023 for $300,231.
✅| OFFICIAL: FC Barcelona reaches an agreement with Libero Football Finance and private investment advisors NIPA Capital BV to become new partners of Bridgeburg Invest, a trademark of Barça Vision.
These investors acquired 29.5% ownership of Barça Vision for €120 million,… pic.twitter.com/4aWCMO8iA1
— Barca Buzz (@Barca_Buzz) August 11, 2023