 Okay, welcome back everyone. It's theCUBE's live coverage from Monaco, for the Monaco Crypto Summit. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. We're getting all the action here as the world goes decentralization as assets from the physical world connect with virtual to hybrid steady state. Mattiah Baldassari is here, founder and CEO of Epico Play. Welcome to theCUBE. Thank you, John. So I'd love to have you on. Love the Italian accent. Get a little European going here. We're from Silicon Valley. We're here in Italy. Great to have you on. So take us with Epico Play. What is it? So Epico Play is a innovative startup with the aim to digitalize the sport industry, to support clubs, federation, leagues, to move into the digital era, right? So we build up a technology that is actually two heads. One is a kind of white label technology for a small, bigger club. And then a B2C platform, epicoplay.com, where you actually can open up your own engaging channel straight away and allow clubs to have an infrastructure, a digital infrastructure to engage directly with their community, to monetize it and to make together some, let's say, two-way engagement experience. Because we are used today to just, you know, a communication usually by this brand that has one way. So I tell you something. Here is something, you know, we create something together between the brand that is a club and the community itself. So that's kind of an ability of these experience. Yes, so I saw something on YouTube a day and a half ago. Roma soccer team, it was a new player. And the fans were going crazy. They had a little sort of light show that he comes out on with a big digital bits logo on this jersey. I think that's who the player was. You know, I was a young player. Di Bala, Paolo Di Bala. Yes, and the fans packed place. And I know it's got the sponsorship, digital bits. So Digital Spits is sponsoring that club. But they have the underlying technology. Are you over the top? Are you building apps on top of digital bits? Yes, I mean, that's also one of the, you know, touching point of our partnership. Digital bits, today we announced our partnership with them, with Digital Bits Foundation. They're going to become, you know, our blockchain partner that will support us on offering the token service to clubs. And for sure, we're aiming to create our own token for Epicoplay platform, which will be always with the substances of the Digital Bits blockchain. And a second step will be for sure, optimizing the relationship of digital bits, you know, also around the world. But on our self, our self already has, you know, a big pipeline of clubs onboarding. And I was telling before in the summit, it's not just, we don't want just the top clubs, right? It's easy, they have money. We want to help, you know, smaller clubs to go into this new era. Otherwise, they're going to lost a lot of audience. They're going to lost a lot of revenue. That's the good. It's interesting, Matai. I was telling earlier, guess we had on about the meta version, sports. Sports clubs have been savvy around data for a decade, over a decade, all the big clubs that have TV contracts, certainly. They know how to manage, use technology to manage the team. They have technology to manage the stadiums, and they have technology to manage the fan experience, which is normally ticketing and, you know, I got a beer, I go to my seat, get stuff delivered, get a shirt, you know, spot pricing, being smart. For decades, so with data. So, okay, that's good. That's a nice foundation. Now with the digital side of things, and NFTs, you've got assets and you've got a whole nother level of interaction on the assets, the player, the brand, the fan who can be a player, and so like, now the multiple dimensions of new use cases. Completely, I believe it is like, again, a new hero, no? So, the touching point are much more, our, let's say, no, however, the J&Z, you know, the teenager, like, they need more, much more input during the week. You know, for our, for my generation, going to the stadium was the most exciting thing. So, we were waiting for Sunday to go to the stadium, right? Now the kids know, actually, they have so many information that if you don't engage them through this kind of fun engagement, that in the week, they will may play PlayStation, you know, play whatever gaming on Sunday instead of watching the live match. But, to get that example, let's stay with that for a second. You use your personal experience because I felt the same way for sports. If they could reach you during the week, you'd be engaging with them. Exactly, you collect more data. You were ready. Exactly, you collect more data and mostly, you have higher quality of the data itself because you see their behavior, you see what they like, not just on the offline pitch, right? But, you can track everything here. So, that's, I think the big step that we bring you also into sports. You know, I did a talk over 15 years ago at MIT and I said, web two, web one was about information, web two was about connections, and web three is about relationships. Okay, not just who you, you know, connected to devices, relationships. And guess what? Community, NFTs, self-expression, engagement, and the engagement patterns are changing as well. You're talking about things that aren't around in it right now. Yeah, this is new, new benefits. It's a new benefit, completely. New benefits to everybody. Completely. For everybody, and especially, you know, actions that clubs needs to do if they want to evolve. You know, that's, I think, really crucial for them. Great, you're building on digital bits. Where are you at the company? Tell us about the origination story. How did it get started? Did you wake up one day and the apple fell on your head and you said, whoa, what happened? What's going on? So, the story is this one. I work in the sports media industry with a big group in London for a long time. Then I was also the CEO of a sport or TT broadcaster. It is international, but I was taking care about Italy. While I was getting along with clubs, federal leagues, I said, there is a missing here, right? They still not consider these as a main aspect. They always carry of investment or investing money in these, right? So that's why we say, okay, you know what? When I quit my job, I say, okay, I won't, I'm going to- You just quit your job, so I'm going to quit. I say, okay, no, I finish the season. Then I say, okay, done. Now I'm already thinking about what's going on. And then I open Epico Play also with these missions. Say, okay, there is an opportunity, there is a needs in the market. And again, John, I'm not talking about just the top three teams of each league. I'm talking all about all the teams. All the team, professional clubs. In rugby, in basketball, in volleyball, you know, all the sports need these changes. Yeah, some are bigger than others, but it's a power law. They all have communities. But if you aggregate all the small and medium team, you know, right? You reach 1.5 billion fans, right? So huge amount of data. And again, with our technology, we are able to give this environment without an investment from the club. So they are more open. They feel more like comfortable. And we're going to make money together with them. And they contribute the assets. So they're partnered. Yeah, we are completely partnered. So we build ecosystem for them and we make money together. It's a joint venture kind of it, not formally, but it's a win-win. Not a lot of money out of pocket. They put a little bit probably into integrate then, but not big numbers. Not a lot of impact on the cash flow because in their mind is still for sure, the pitch, not the field is the most important thing. So that's why, okay, then we will help them. Okay, don't worry. It's all upside for them. Do they have a rev share on things too? Yes, exactly. So they do a business deal on their side. Yes. So they're happy. They have the option for the future. We build up everything for the future. Then we keep starting and keeping monetizing together. So in two different ways. So can you get us some good tickets when the cube is in town? Whenever you want, John. Okay. Of course. What's next for you? Take us through, you fundraising, you're building your team. Take a minute to put a plug in for your company. We actually at the end, like a seed round of 1.2 million between a group, investment group that we're working with. It has a venture, one big telco company and some angel, strategic angel investor. Now we are also closing another bridge round to go then in 2023 to make a big round and scale internationally. So already now we are approaching five to seven countries, new countries, especially also going to South America where there is a massive adoption of this kind of opportunity, especially in terms of data. Then straight after we're going to make this fundraising and expand our business, be really aggressive. Or as I told you before, on the fact that, okay, you know what, we do the investment. Just let's build up your ecosystem together. And there we see, you know, can be differentiator element between up, eventually other competitors will come out after. Okay, great venture. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you for coming on theCUBE. We'll see you at the Yacht Club later today, the big Gala event. Stay right there. We're wrapping it up here. I'm John Furrier here. Live in Monaco with theCUBE, Monaco Crypto Summit, all the next generation new wave of businesses being refactored with new technologies, bringing value, that's what decentralization is. Web three all coming together. Of course theCUBE's covering it like a blanket. I'm John Furrier. We'll be back with more coverage after this short break.