Background

I entered the investing world in 2015-2016 by creating a group called Fabric Ventures, a Venture Capital Fund wholly focused on companies creating scarce digital assets, unique or NFTs. We invest in Polkadot and similar protocols, for example, DeFi protocols like 1inch and products like Ramp & Sorare. We have noticed that we missed a message from Nicolas a year and a half ago. Still, in the meantime, we have seen Sorare managers building extensive galleries, and the Sorare product leads to impressive records and results in the eSport, so this young company was one that we had looked closer and closer to.

The investment grew along the professional football players involved and early players when YNWA randomly selected players for the first covid quarantine. We saw Zuraw & YNWA, my two leading sellers on the market, and that is what we are growing now in BlackPool, galleries.

Hibee: True ownership through digital assets is good to see. Your attraction to football is becoming bigger and bigger.

The incredible power is that you can give ownership, take some investors, and involve your community. There is a reason why UNI is the leader. It is because of their users. They have given 400 UNI, which is worth 15k$ to a mighty army. Imagine if, at Uber or Airbnb, every participant has equity in the company.

We have significant motivation to get involved in what Sorare is doing. We have been evangelizing Sorare with many friends, but we are going beyond with clubs and, generally, in the sports world.

YNWA: Fabric decided to place their funds; how many blueprints do you see for different companies, and how do you see Sorare in eSport & business?

Recap on our side, on average, 150-200 opportunities/month, 5 we take deep-dive and select to have a robust selection process. Sometimes we are wrong, but you must make a valuation and decision. Technology will move, and adoption cycles that initially were slow can become faster. Some great infrastructure blockchain solutions and developer tools will be created. You need to find the projects which will take off technologically & for users. Non-crypto native for Sorare is good because Metamask is hard to link, so real football fans come to see a better product with Ramp. That creates a better fantasy product, and finally, they stay because the tech side is better than anywhere else. To obtain the possibility to scale like for ETH or an alternative or libraries of smart contracts, the one constant is mass-market app adoption beyond the crypto users. In football, Sorare was the first moving actor in this category.

YNWA: The challenge is the management of expectation, players with six months & did not play a finished game, and sometimes you saw the communication; the ones you wanted to impress were crypto fans, but they are hard to impress because they want a finished product. We have recently seen the cost of transactions of ETH. How long can we criticize Sorare because of the technological iteration of the product itself? The company is always moving fast, and they will make mistakes. So if I accept multi-billion companies to make mistakes, Sorare has well had this right. I am impressed by the Sorare team and how quickly they react. Transactions ETH scaling issues, this is an incredible experience; they paid for gas fees and have not decided to do not pay and wait to have an excellent user experience. Management of expectations to do, but Sorare is working on it. But the decisions were acceptable, allowing you to use them even if you cannot sell them; you can use cards to play. Secondly, Sorare Tech is a super team, I have learned a lot from them, and I know they work on a super solution.

General Discussion about MLS, the Sorare future & building lineups

The link between players & football fans will be built to emphasize this relationship.

Hibee: Yes, I see this because a Unique card is so expensive, and the benefit can be a great thing we can see one day.

YNWA: The clubs can share some experiences and partner with Sorare to enable a new experience. Regarding your approach, your collection grew massively; familiar with the Kimmich Unique, so what's next?

We realize many people are going into the stats, which is fantastic. I was doing the replays, only stats-based, combined with players not picked and everyone picking players. Thanks to this strategy, I won my 1st Unique. The live game started with many Sorare driven by players to watch the game, fewer stats, and more emotional players. For picking the teams, combos of 2 strikers 1M 1D 1GK. This lineup can play well together. Other players may need help to play the game with a particular strategy and a lineup that is not likely to be in another management team. D1, for a specific reason, is the most exciting one because, for each card, there is only 1 or 2, so you know what people will be lining up. Zuraw = Navas, Alaba, Marquinhos, Kroos & Lewandowski, so deadly combo, and you have to think of a lineup to beat this team. More strategic about what other players will be lining up.

YNWA: Yes, we have got the intro of the private league, SorareData, and help to have a better experience. These social leagues are exciting, with 11 players and Sorarebrag, which follows a similar setup to build a league between 4 and 6 people to have magical ratings.

We need to take care of all the scores on all the platforms and study them.

Hibee: One-shot leagues, card rewards, great success, people involvement can take these games more seriously, and the same for researching using SorareData. 3rd Party is fascinating.

The decisive element of Sorare is that you can use the cards for everything you want. That is why we will see multiple use cases for Sorare cards. Promising going forward as well, jump on every 3rd Party, and if you prefer Sorare or SorareBrag, you can use 1 or both, but maybe one will regroup everything, and at the end, we will use only one.

YNWA: How do you value the cards? Before, there were only Sorare competitions. But now, there are multiple variables. 3rd parties competitions and more and more reasons to get a different value on a card, so now, if we continue to get opportunities like Sorarebrag & Soraredata, card preference will change because of special national tournaments & particular types of players to win prizes. Interesting to research how 2021 Euro players & next season's MLS or Asian cards will be worth it. A lot of effects on values & prizes.

Interesting mechanics; if you see that based on clubs' perspective, new clubs can be added, so top 3 European places & top 20 Leagues. If AC Milan will care about the value of Sorare, it can be interesting to get involved in SorareMega or another to organize AC Milan only. Every week tickets or Jerseys and you will see more value than only the Sorare value. Because you had AC Milan values, the market of AC Milan cards will push the prices to the roof. There is a point where clubs cannot sit and watch but it will be fascinating to watch out.

Sorare has done a fantastic job and needs the top 20 to continue the journey. Sorare will have relationships with all these clubs and leagues and bring awareness around specific clubs. This is how I see it. Day 0 = collectible to enter fantasy league and now, side projects data-driven, private leagues, and much more. We are still determining where it will go. Re-invention of what digital IP is for sports. Nicolas mentioned that if you are playing the Sorare game and a player is scoring a game, you want to have the goal in 10 sec on your mobile phone. Football did not change for 100 years, but people only want to watch 90' for some of the games. The relationships between players & fans as well. Antoine Griezmman playing the game is a fantastic testament; more and more players will interact because if someone puts value on my card, super value, so imagine other players will feel the same. Someone in the street with your jersey is the same but for the digital world. That is where I see Sorare in the long term.

Hibee: So exciting; I want to be a little exciting, but not next week, next month, long rally.

When you have ten years view of Venture Capital and such a viral product, these options are even more fun. Crazy competitive advantage in terms of gameplay, investors & users coming together.

End, I hope you found it useful. See you next time.