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The quiet summer stretch for French Tech funding ended with a resounding bang on Tuesday. First, Sorare announced in the morning that it had raised a record $680 million round of financing. Just a few hours later, marketplace platform Mirakl closed a $555 million round. The companies are now valued respectively at $4.3 billion and $3.2 billion.
I'm willing to bet it's the single largest funding day in French Tech history.
The Sorare funding is particularly mind-blowing, and not just because of its size. This was a Series B round – Series B!– which is a reminder that Sorare is an incredibly young startup that was only founded in 2018. If there has been a French startup that has had a more meteoric rise, I can't think of it.
I spoke to Sorare co-founder and CEO Nicolas Julia earlier this year for a profile on France's NFT industry for Sifted.eu. The company has built a fantasy football platforn based on non-fungible tokens (NFT) and had just burst into the international spotlight following a €40 million round of venture capital that was led by Benchmark and Accel, two international biggies.
