Cricket NFT platform Faze Technologies gets $17.4 million in seed funding : Tech News

Mumbai: Faze Technologies — a platform for fans to collect, use, play, and interact with cricket through non-fungible tokens (NFTs) — has raised $17.4 million in a seed funding round led by Tiger Global with participation from Coatue Management and Sequoia Capital India.

Dapper Labs, Samsung Next, and Courtside Ventures, also participated in the fundraising.

Faze Technologies has signed a deal with the International Cricket Council (ICC) to create exclusive digital collectibles using NFTs to launch on the Flow blockchain. NFTs are a type of crypto asset in which each token is entirely unique. They can be used as a digital certificate of authenticity for any asset, digital or physical.
(Read our explainer on NFTs here.)

Faze Technologies was founded by Wall Street veteran Anshum Bhambri, Indian Premier League’s first COO and Reliance Sports’ ex-CEO Sundar Raman, and serial entrepreneur Kushagra Kohli.

“Our mission is to build the metaverse for cricket. We are in a unique position to combine NFTs, gaming, financial utilities, and money-can’t-buy experiences to create a platform for fans to collect, use, play, and interact with cricket through NFTs on Flow,” Bhambri, who is also the chief executive of Faze Technologies, said. “Every NFT purchase can be made directly within seconds via a mobile wallet, or a credit/debit card, without the need for a crypto wallet, to ensure that every transaction is as easy as possible.”

Faze Technologies has also entered into a strategic partnership with Dapper Labs, the company behind CryptoKitties.

Roham Gharegozlou, CEO of Dapper Labs said, “With over one billion cricket fans across ICC’s 105 member nations, Faze is revolutionising how cricket fans everywhere connect and engage with some of the greatest moments in cricket history. From NBA and WNBA to La Liga, NFL and UFC, we’re seeing fans across the globe adopt new dynamic fan-driven experiences on Flow, and I’m eager to see how cricket fans engage with NFTs.”

Shailesh Lakhani, managing director at Sequoia India, said, “We believe that blockchains and user-centric design can come together to make for never-seen-before social experiences for digitally-native consumers. The team at Faze is creating Web 3.0 products that are fun, a little bit crazy, and very compelling. They are as simple to onboard and use as traditional Web 2.0 apps, which will enable mass appeal.”