Lionel Messi’s Play Time backs football Web3 startup Matchday in $21 million seed round

The football Web3 startup Matchday raised $21 million in a seed round of funding. As reported by Decrypt.

One of the investors was Play Time, the venture capital firm of the famous footballer Lionel Messi. Participating in the round were Courtside Ventures, Greylock, HackVC, Capricorn Investment Group and Horizons Ventures.

Matchday is developing sports video games. Co-founder and CEO Derrick Ko explained that their projects would be aimed at mainstream users.

The company holds official licenses from FIFA and FIFPRO.

Matchday’s Chief Game Officer Sebastian de Halle previously worked at the video game company Electronic Arts, where he contributed to the FIFA and Madden NFL franchises.

“Our products will be accessible to all players and based on true ownership of digital collectibles,” said De Halle.

As ambassador, Spanish footballer Alexia Putellas joins Matchday to discuss future product vision.

Messi has long been linked to the crypto industry. On June 12, 2021, the footballer received club fan tokens of Paris Saint-Germain as part of a signing bonus.

At the end of 2022, the Bitget exchange launched a joint advertising campaign with a well-known athlete.

In March 2022, Lionel Messi signed a $20 million deal to promote Socios’ fan-token platform.