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2024 is a crucial year for Sorare. After a particularly complicated 2023, as is the case for much of the industry, the French unicorn wants to bounce back, and one way of doing that is by improving its products, i.e. its games. "That's our priority", its CEO, Nicolas Julia, told us at the end of December.
Since this interview, the French start-up, known for its mega fundraising round of $680 million completed in 2021 (a record amount for a French company), has made progress on a number of projects: in particular, it has released a new game mode, Sorare Rivals. It has also reorganised its teams, repatriating some of its New York-based staff to Paris.
As revealed by TechCrunch, Sorare, which claims to have 5 million players by 2023, has decided to let go of around 20 people in its US offices, where it previously had around 30 staff. The cuts will not be drastic, however, and will be offset by recruitment in France.
"The idea is not to lighten the load, but to have the entire product team in France," explains Nicolas Julia. "The distance between the production teams in Paris and New York may have created a form of misalignment", points out a good connoisseur of the company, who explains that American basketball and baseball games are now too far removed from the football game that is very popular in Europe.
A further twenty or so people (28 to be exact) are expected to join the Paris offices in the coming weeks.
Sorare, which employs just under 200 people, is obviously keeping its business in the United States, where the start-up has had a second office since 2022. In the space of two years, the unicorn has launched games on basketball and another on baseball, without achieving the same level of success.
"It's much more complicated to launch in the United States. Competition in fantasy gaming is much greater than in Europe", stresses a Sorare competitor, pointing out that refocusing Sorare in France would also be an admission of failure.
The ten or so Sorare employees remaining in New York will be in charge of the partnership and commercial parts.
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