Photo by Yasser Bakhsh/Getty Pictures

Chiliz, the blockchain technologies provider for the Socios.com fan engagement platform, has made a $five.five million strategic investment in MatchWornShirt.com (MWS), an genuine sporting memorabilia platform, in exchange for a 20% stake in the organization.

As portion of the agreement, Chiliz will function to increase the MWS brand by advertising its supplying to Socios.com’s 1.eight million customers from extra than 170 sporting organizations about the globe.

The investment will also raise the genuine-planet utility for Socios fan token-holders, who will achieve early access and discounts to the MWS marketplace by way of the MWS integration and will be capable to bid on products that are listed in genuine time for the duration of soccer games.

“The MatchWornShirt investment is an vital step in our approach to bring extra to the fan encounter and rewards to the Chiliz ecosystem,” Alexandre Dreyfus, the CEO of Chiliz/Socios, told Sportico.

Final week, Chiliz announced a $50 million incubator and accelerator system, backed by Jump Crypto. The system will foster early-stage projects seeking to leverage the new Chiliz blockchain and the Socios.com partners, offering strategic guidance and funding. 

“Alongside our Chiliz labs incubator fund, we are delighted to be capable to make strategic investments in firms like MatchWornShirt, which will bring instant rewards and utility to fan token holders and provide sustainable income streams to teams in our ecosystem and lengthy-term worth to fans,” Dreyfus stated.

As portion of this approach, in December, Chiliz launched Gameused.com, an finish-to-finish memorabilia authentication service for sports and entertainment, delivering storage, NFC and NFT authentication for redemption and resale. This new service premiered for the duration of the current EA Sports Supercup (Supercoppa Italiana) amongst A.C. Milan and Inter Milan in Saudi Arabia’s Fahd International Stadium final January. The balls with which Inter scored each and every of their 3 ambitions in the three- victory had been authenticated applying Gameused.com technologies and have been provided away to $INTER fan token holders as portion of the rewards in the Socios.com app.

“Developers picking the Chiliz chain to construct their new revolutionary projects is central to our vision, permitting us to construct an ecosystem of fan experiences and transactions exactly where fan tokens deliver a “digital crucial,” which can function across any merchandise or experiences constructed on our infrastructure,” Dreyfus stated.