ChannelFireball announced today that it has merged with BinderPOS, a company that makes point of sale software designed for game stores, to form CFB Group. The new company is planning to launch a new online collectibles marketplace called the ChannelFireball Marketplace sometime in the second quarter of 2021.
The ChannelFireball Marketplace will launch with support for Magic: the Gathering as well as Pokemon and Flesh and Blood, though support for other games is in the works. The marketplace will be limited to United States for now and will allow retailers to sell cards from the supported games for a flat 8.95% fee.
Retailers will be required to have a legally registered business to use the platform, meaning that peer-to-peer sales will not be allowed. While a BinderPOS membership will not be required, BinderPOS customers will receive a discount and their inventory will automatically sync to the online marketplace.
ChannelFireball, for its part, will rebrand its existing ecommerce operation to FireballX and transition it to the ChannelFireball Marketplace when the service launches.
Superstars of Sports, the business entity behind ChannelFireball, was founded in 1993 as a sports cards retailer. It grew over time to sell games like Magic and launched ChannelFireball.com in 2009, which grew to include successful ecommerce, content, and esports ventures.
BinderPOS, on the other hand, began opening its point of sale software to new customers in 2019 and has grown its roster to around 400 today.
As part of the merger, BinderPOS CEO Joshua Grant will become the CEO of CFB Group, while ChannelFireball’s CEO Jon Saso will serve as the Chariman. Grant told ICv2 that the newly-combined company would seek its formal Series A funding “this year.”