Spanish football club FC Barcelona has received a €120 million ($132 million) investment from Libero Football Finance AG and Nipa Capital B.V. for its Web3 initiative, Barça Vision. FC Barcelona previously partnered with Chiliz in February 2020 to create fan tokens and launched its first NFT collection in July 2022.
Sale of Company Shares
According to the announcement made on August 11, FC Barcelona sold a 29.5% stake in Bridgeburg Invest, the holding company of Barça Vision, in exchange for this capital. The summary of the agreement is stated below:
“Barça Vision is an initiative to integrate all digital content around Web3 and blockchain, including NFTs and the metaverse universe, as part of the club’s strategy to build the digital Espai Barça.”
Libero is a publicly traded company in Germany that provides financial consulting services to football clubs, while Nipa Capital is a venture capital firm based in the Netherlands. This agreement is subject to approval by FC Barcelona shareholders, and the contract terms are expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Barcelona’s Blockchain Initiatives
Since February 2020, FC Barcelona has partnered with Chiliz blockchain to create BAR fan tokens for sports activities. In August 2022, Chiliz announced that it had purchased a 24.5% stake in Barça Vision, the club’s digital content creation arm, for $100 million.
Then, in July 2022, the football club sold its first NFT, “Masterpiece #1,” at a Sotheby’s New York auction for $693,000. The second piece of the series, “Masterpiece #2,” was sold on OpenSea for $300,231 on June 28, 2023.
In May, FC Barcelona released its first NFT collection with FC Barcelona Plastiks. The collection, called “Unleash Your Passion,” featured 3,000 animal-themed NFTs priced at $30 each, with the club pledging to contribute to the removal of 35,000,000 kilograms of plastic from the planet.
