Summary
The funding round is backed by prominent sports personalities and entrepreneurs, such as One Football’s Lucas von Cranach, Sandbox COO & Co-Founder Sebastian Borget and tennis professional Dominic Thiem
The platform enables sports fans to invest in athletes and participate in their real-world financial success
Athletes gain access to a new form of financial resources and unlock emotional value by making fans part of their team
ZUG, Switzerland and BERLIN, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — NFT-based athlete investment platform FANtium (fantium.com), today announced a private pre-seed round of EUR 2 million (USD 2 million). The funding comes from prominent web3 business angels, among them Sandbox COO & Co-Founder Sebastien Borget, Sorare growth lead Brian O’Hagan, Argent Co-founder & CEO Itamar Lesuisse and Spatial Co-founder Anand Agarawala. Further, the company receives backing from well-known sports personalities and entrepreneurs, including Austrian tennis professional, US Open Champion Dominic Thiem, and OneFootball founder Lucas von Cranach.
FANtium will start to democratize athlete financing, allowing fans to invest in athletes and participate in their real-world financial success. Fans can invest in their seasonal earnings, as well as in career earnings of up-and-coming younger talents. Invested fans are entitled to a share of the athlete’s real-world earnings in the form of prize money and sponsorship deals. On top of the financial benefit, fans can unlock emotional value by becoming part of the athlete’s close community with access to unique fan perks – connecting them with the athlete in a whole new way.
Professional athletes can tokenize a certain amount of future season’s prize money and sell those shares as NFTs to fans via the FANtium’s platform. They can reinvest the upfront revenue earlier, e.g. by hiring their fitness coach or physio, and mitigate risks such as injuries on a seasonal basis.
Young talents can tokenize a limited share of their future earnings to raise funds they need to make it to the top. It solves a major challenge faced by many talents across different sports: they have the talent but lack the access to money to become entirely professional. Especially individual sports such as tennis, golf or racing are expensive to be done early on and require significant money for traveling, coaching and equipment. Access to money is crucial, even for young players, who are among the best in their age group.
“A season on the professional tennis tour is costly. Many young players are struggling a lot, especially when their parents cannot afford their career”, says Dominic Thiem, Austrian tennis professional who was among the best in his age group and later won the US Open. “A lot of young talents are forced to retire from the sport in early stages because they have trouble affording their career. Even finding a supporter or sponsor can be very tough.”
That is what FANtium wants to change. “If you think about it, it doesn’t make sense that only companies have access to money. There are billions of sports enthusiasts in the world who would love to invest in these athletes and become part of their journey,” says Jonathan Ludwig, Co-founder and CEO of FANtium. “By connecting these talents with sports enthusiasts, we are making the sport more equal because as a young athlete, your success will no longer depend on your financial background.”
Similar to music NFT marketplaces like Royal, selling song rights as NFTs, FANtium uses NFTs as the underlying technology enabling fans to invest in athletes and receive a share of the earnings the athlete is making. The company envisions establishing athlete investments as a new asset class and then expanding to other sports rights categories.
Given the latest crypto regulations, whether such NFTs will be considered securities remains to be seen, including the implications that will follow for platforms and users alike. However, FANtium seems to be following a new approach, launching the platform in a security-compliant way, starting in Switzerland.
“We believe that regulation will be good for the NFT industry overall, as it provides trust and transparency for NFT owners”, says Ludwig. “The dynamic and fragmented regulatory environment with specific requirements in each jurisdiction will remain one of our biggest challenges in the next few years, especially since our goal is to provide frictionless access to athlete investment in a compliant way.”
The company plans to launch the first athlete drop in Q4 of this year, leveraging athletes’ communities to bring early sports fans to the platform. Users can currently sign up for early access on the website.
FANtium was founded by a team of sports and web3 enthusiasts with extensive experience in company building and scaling. It is led by Jonathan Ludwig, who previously built and exited two startups in the loyalty space and invested early in multiple successful web3 startups such as Sorare. The founding team brings combined previous experience from, among others, BCG and Rocket Internet.
Website – Twitter – Instagram
Logo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1917162/FANtium_Logo.jpg
Photo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1917163/FANtium_founding_team.jpg
View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/nft-based-athlete-investment-platform-fantium-raises-2m-angel-investment-to-democratize-athlete-financing-301644607.html
Peloton's isn't even matching this on its own site: This October Amazon Prime Day sale price is the all-time-low discount for the bike.
ESPN reaches hundreds of millions of sports fans, a critical demographic for DraftKings' services.
Good news. #GoBlue
"Eargate" makes Padres postseason elimination of Mets one to remember, Justin Tucker FG at the buzzer lifts Ravens over Bengals, the Jets have a winning record after beating Dolphins, Cooper Rush is undefeated as Cowboys roll over Rams, Taysom Hill stuns Seattle in Saints victory, Eagles edge out the Cardinals and are the only undefeated team at 5-0, the Giants beat the Packers in London… and The Rush has a theory about why. Meanwhile, Tom Brady gets a bogus call in the Bucs win over Atlanta and the Falcons are undefeated against the spread.
Nike has added five young basketball athletes to its name-image-likeness (NIL) roster, including LeBron James’ son and one of his high school classmates. The new group includes Bronny James, a senior point guard at Los Angeles’ Sierra Canyon School and the Cleveland Cavaliers forward's eldest son; JuJu Watkins, a senior guard who also attends Sierra Canyon, a private school in the Los Angeles area; Caitlin Clark, a junior point guard at the University of Iowa; Haley Jones, a senior guard at Stanford University; and DJ Wagner, a point guard from Camden, N.J. who is the son of former NBA player Dajuan Wagner.
The entire Steelers coaching staff is on the hot seat.
College football by its nature is an emotional exercise. There are highs and lows every Saturday. Overreactions are natural. Here's five from Week 6.
The Kansas City Chiefs won on Monday night despite a questionable roughing-the-passer penalty called on Chris Jones during the second quarter.
Emma Stone and her husband, Dave McCary, endured a cascade of boos from New York Mets fans over the weekend, but they got the last laugh.
Carli Lloyd, now 40, was part of the nucleus of the national team's old guard. Lloyd represented the United States in four summer Olympics, helping the team to two gold and one bronze medal, and won two World Cup championships.
New York Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor helped his team win their first wild card game against the San Diego Padres, but the real star was his daughter, Kalina
The 2022 MLB season is advancing into a brave new world, a 12-team postseason bracket that will decide a champion over the next month.
The coalition has gathered more than 14,000 signatures for an online petition.
Back in 2017, Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor took over the combat sports world with their…
Here's how we graded the Tennessee Titans for their win over the Washington Commanders as they head into a bye week.
Finn Allen showed his form ahead of the Twenty20 World Cup by top-scoring for New Zealand with a disciplined batting display in their nine-wicket romp over Pakistan in Christchurch on Tuesday in the tri-series.
East 72, an investment management firm, published its third-quarter 2022 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. A quarterly gross portfolio return of -5.7% was recorded by the fund for the third quarter of 2022. After a stunning 8.9% rally in July, the S&P500 saw declines in both August (4.2%) and […]
Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones believes the NFL should allow video review of roughing-the-passer penalties after his controversial call — the second in as many days — nearly cost the Kansas City Chiefs in their come-from-behind 30-29 victory over the Las Vegas Raiders on Monday night. The Chiefs had just scored to trim their deficit to 17-7 when Jones stripped Raiders quarterback Derek Carr from behind just before halftime. The Pro Bowl defensive tackle landed on Carr while also coming up with the ball — replays showed it was clearly loose and that Jones cleanly recovered — but referee Carl Cheffers threw a flag for roughing the passer.
Tom Brady celebrated a Tampa Bay Buccaneers win by fishing with his son. The NFL quarterback shared a photo to Instagram as he continues to field divorce rumors.
Colo-NESCO couldn't slow down a potent BMG offense in an 82-38 non-district loss to the Bears Friday at Brooklyn.
