France may have been ejected from the Euro 2020 football championships unexpectedly early last month, but “les Bleus” are still in the game — at least the fantasy version.
Sorare, a fast-growing blockchain-based fantasy football platform, is one of France’s rising number of “soon-icorns” — a start-up tipped to be valued at $1bn or more in the near future. It allows fans to collect and trade digital football cards using cryptocurrency ethereum.
If a widely rumoured fundraising goes ahead, Sorare could become France’s 11th unicorn this year, according to Dealroom, the private tech company data provider. That would bring the national total of start-ups valued at €1bn or more — either through funding rounds or exits — to 28. Not bad for a company founded less than three years ago and which now has just 17 employees. And not bad for a country that in 2018 had just nine in the stable.