Unagi, a Web3 gaming company, revealed today that it has raised $5 million in a seed round headed by Sisu Game Ventures. The French startup has also revealed that it is getting ready to broaden the reach of its NFT fantasy sports into basketball. The company revealed that Sfermion, Signum Capital and 2B Ventures participated in the seed round. The money will be used for research and development as well as to hire a team of between 10 to 15 people to add to the current staff of 30.
Equity funding predominated the latest funding round. The fresh funding round follows an earlier $4.2 million investment by Binance’s VC arm, Binance Labs, which happened only six months ago. Thus far, $12.3 million has been invested by VCs and angel investors into the Paris-based startup. In addition, Unagi said that the most recent financing doubled its valuation, but it did not reveal the figure.
Unagi and its steady rise in fantasy gaming space
Unagi, a company founded in 2021, is well-known for its free-to-play fantasy football game, Ultimate Champions, a football video game in which players design and manage their own teams using players from a wide variety of European clubs. To give users an opportunity to earn awards based on the actual performances of their preferred players, Ultimate Champions games are synchronised with real-world matches.
The Ultimate Champions platform allows users to collect digital trading cards featuring professional football players, and it’s free to play. By acquiring new NFT cards, gamers can customise their fantasy teams with a wider variety of playable characters. Recent statistics show that Unagi’s user base has soared above 220,000, with over 70,000 active users on a monthly basis.
English Premier League club Arsenal is one of 47 top European football teams with which Unagi has signed sponsorship deals. On the heels of their most recent investment round, Unagi has partnered with EuroLeague Basketball and will launch Ultimate Champions for basketball in March 2023. With releases on Polygon and BNB chains in recent weeks, the game is now multichain.