Karate Combat – a live-action and full-contact martial arts sports league – announced an $18 million funding round led by BITKRAFT Ventures with additional participation from Delphi Digital, The Operating Group, Alpha Wave Global, Hashkey, Lattice, M13, Santiago R Santos, RooxieXBT, etc. Previous investors include the League’s founders, Packy McCormick’s Not Boring Capital, and Keyboard Monkey. The funding will be used for supporting the May 10th launch of the Karate Combat App and $KARATE token.
Launched in 2018, Karate Combat is the world’s premier full-contact striking league, blending the excitement of live-action, full-contact karate with immersive CGI environments powered by the Epic Games’ Unreal Engine. And through the use of XR technology, Karate Combat can transport viewers into a virtual world where they can experience the excitement of martial arts in a way that was never before possible. The live broadcasts mark the first time a sports league has blended extensive real-time virtual effects with real-life athletics.
With about 4.5 million followers and 10 million views per event, the league is streamed and broadcast to more than 100 countries worldwide. And the distributors include Eurosport, Globo’s Combate, MatchTV, BeIN Sports, CBS Sports, and ESPN Deportes.
The League has around 100 full-time exclusive fighters – which include Rafael Aghayev, Raymond Daniels, Luiz Rocha, and Ross Levine, and UFC Hall of Famer Bas Rutten as the league’s lead announcer.
Karate Combat has been the first sports league structured as a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) with token holders having control over the direction of the league. And on May 10th, the company will launch the Karate Combat UP Only Gaming App and $KARATE token.
As part of the new app, fans are able to collect free $KARATE tokens. And the $KARATE token both governs the League and gamifies the live viewing experience. The holders of the $KARATE token can use the league’s smart contracts, web apps, and mobile apps to vote on fighters, earn additional $KARATE tokens with no risk of loss, and boost their favorite fighters’ potential prize pools, above and beyond their contracted pay.
KEY QUOTES:
“Karate Combat has done a great job fulfilling the need of sports content for younger fans in a manner vastly different from traditional sports. We are thrilled to now have BITKRAFT Ventures, a distinguished investment firm led by a team of venture capitalist heavyweights, in our corner and believe the DAO will continue to supercharge our ongoing success and create a new category of entertainment within Web3.”
- Robert Bryan, Karate Combat Co-Founder
“Sports league value largely emerges from the quality of the competition, and the passion and loyalty of the fan base. Karate Combat is leveraging its Web3 tools and ethos to shift how fans engage with their favorite sports by building direct relationships, aligning incentives, and enabling influence over every aspect of the league. More than that, it’s doing it with an incredibly fresh and differentiated media that strikes all of its fans as ‘videogames meet MMA’, making it a fun and doubly-innovative new partner for BITKRAFT.”
- Carlos Pereira, Partner at BITKRAFT Ventures
