Rario raises $120 Million Series A funding led by Dream Capital

Mumbai, April 21, 2022: Rario today announced a $120 Million Series A funding round led by Dream Capital, the Corporate Venture Capital and M&A arm of Dream Sports. Rario currently has the largest rights globally through exclusive partnerships with 6 international cricket leagues and a roster of 900+ cricketers. With Dream Capital’s investment, Rario now gets access to Dream Sports’ 140 Million users, who will be offered FIAT-only products in India, with the potential to create the largest officially licensed player cards platform globally. Alpha Wave Global (previously Falcon Edge Capital) also participated in the round, and now joins existing investors Animoca Brands (Global leader in Web3 gaming), Presight Capital, and Kingsway Capital.

The Singapore-based company, founded in 2021 by IIT Delhi alumni Ankit Wadhwa and Sunny Bhanot, has recently signed one of the world’s largest deals; a multi-year exclusive partnership with Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricketers’ Association to create an Australian cricket metaverse of collectables and gaming.

Rario enables fans to engage as a community, giving them a chance to own a piece of cricket history through digital collectables across player cards, video moments, and cricket artefacts. Through Rario, Indian sports fans can buy, sell, and trade  through FIAT-only mediums – credit cards, debit cards, and bank transfers. Since 2021, Rario has sold over 50,000 officially licensed player cards  to sports fans across 20 countries with the USA, UK, Australia, and India as its top 4 markets.

This is currently the largest investment by DreamCap

Dream Capital was incepted in 2020 to empower startups by following a multi-stage investment strategy ranging from US$1M to $100M ticket sizes, with a key focus on core sectors of Dream Sports such as sports, gaming, and fitness-tech. With Rario, Dream Capital’s portfolio grows to 9 companies and marks the foray of Dream Sports into the Web3 space. This is currently the largest investment by DreamCap, and also the single largest investment in the cricket officially licensed player cards space globally.

Commenting on this, Ankit Wadhwa, Co-Founder & CEO, Rario said, “Cricket is the 2nd largest sport in the world with more than 1.5bn fans globally. NFTs are creating new forms of engagement allowing fans to own and trade digital collectables. Rario’s global cricket NFT ecosystem will be further strengthened by the 140M sports fans on Dream Sports.”

Speaking on the investment, Dev Bajaj, Chief Strategy Officer, Dream Sports, said, “DreamCap is glad to partner with Rario to help sports fans engage deeper with their favourite players and teams.

Web3 use cases in sports are transformational, and we are looking to back more startups in the space globally with innovative utilities of NFTs.”