Fantasy rugby: Oval3 raises €2.5 million

When you think of sport and NFTs, you almost automatically think of... Sorare. But the French start-up, which made headlines in 2021 with a record-breaking $680 million fundraising round, is not alone in this niche. Other players such as Oval3 are also present.

Oval3, which for its part has developed a rugby game based on NFTs, has just raised €2.5 million.

Several investment funds such as the American, Interval Capital, and the Singaporean, Cliff Capital, participated in the operation. Several rugby players such as French star Antoine Dupont and business angels such as Raphaël Gauthier, the brother of Ledger boss Pascal Gauthier, are also on board.

The principle behind Oval3 is very similar to Sorare: each player puts together a team of five rugby players from one of the three partner leagues: the Top 14 (France's elite championship) the Pro D2 (France's second division) or Major League Rugby, which is the American championship.

Every week there are competitions and the players compete with their teams based on their players' performances on the pitch. "The rarer cards allow you to get more points", says Tony Bouquier, CEO and co-founder of Oval3, which now claims just over 50,000 players.

Rewards in crypto and soon a token

The best-placed players in tournaments can win cards, money, in the form of cryptos, in this case "Matic", which is the crypto on the Polygon blockchain that is used for Oval3's NFTs. Based on the Sorare model, players can also earn "real" experiences, such as stadium seats for matches.

With this round of funding, the company based between the UK and France wants to continue to grow by signing up new leagues, particularly in Europe. Between now and December, the company will also be launching its own token: "$OVL3". Part of the fund-raising was carried out in "$OVL3", which is available on Polygon. Investors got back €850,000 worth of tokens during the fundraising.

The token is supposed to gradually replace Matic in the game's reward system. "The token will be used as in-game currency, for everything from buying cards to gaining access to competitions or game modes," explains Tony Bouquier. The token could also be used as a bridge with clubs to purchase tickets or products. In total, there will be one billion tokens.

The fact remains that issuing a token is never simple. In many projects, tokens take off as soon as they are put on the market, before plummeting as they fail to find a real use. This is what Oval3 is trying to thwart.