Sweden’s Goals raises US$15 million to build NFT-based soccer video game

Swedish startup Goals has raised US$15 million in seed funding for building a non-fungible token (NFT)-based soccer video game that can be an alternative to EA Sports’ FIFA series.

Northzone led the investment, which also included existing backers Cherry Ventures, Moonfire Ventures, and Banana Capital. Angel investors included FC Barcelona defender Gerard Pique, co-founder of NFT video game Axie Infinity, and Sorare co-founder Nicolas Julia, among others.

For the past decade, FIFA has dominated the video game market, producing large sums of money through its 'Ultimate Team' mode and squeezing out rivals that cannot match the expenditure required for development and license.

Goals believes that combining F2P with NFTs can offer something different but just as engaging as FIFA. Konami's revamped eFootball series has adopted a free-to-play (F2P) model and an esports focus to secure more market share, but Goals believes that by combining F2P with NFTs, it can offer something different but just as engaging as FIFA.

Rather than competing for licenses with EA, Goals will let gamers create fictional player-based NFTs that can be exchanged, utilized across numerous applications, and sold for real money.

This is in contrast to FIFA's strategy of obtaining as many licenses as possible to create 'cards' related to its ecosystem. The game world resets every year, so the time and currency can be used to purchase random packs of cards rather than specific objects, and the game world can be purchased with real-world currency rather than individual items.

Other NFT-based soccer games have tended to focus on collecting or fantasy components, therefore Goals stands out from platforms like Sorare by including gameplay.

Goals thinks that the lack of licenses and older platforms will give its developers greater design options, allowing them to create a metaverse-native game.

Few details have been released, but Goals CEO Andreas Thorstensson said in an interview with Sifted that the business planned to produce an arcade style' representation of soccer and that a rough internal version should be ready this summer, ahead of a full commercial launch in 'two to three years.

The fundraising round comes only weeks after UK firm Footium raised $3 million in the soccer management simulation area. The Football Manager series from Sports Interactive is by far the market leader, with a massive database and three decades of development that no other game can equal.