OpenSea raises $23M to scale the largest marketplace for NFTs
NFT platform OpenSea announced a $23M fundraise, with an impressive set of partners to support them on their journey.
Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) brings deep knowledge in crypto and devotion to the emerging web3 ecosystem. Innovative angel investors and leaders such as Naval Ravikant, Mark Cuban, Tim Ferris, Belinda Johnson, Ben Silbermann, Alexis Ohanian, and Balaji Srinivasan; crypto natives Standard Crypto, Linda Xie, Avichal Garg, and Flamingo DAO; creators like 3LAU, RAC, and Justin Kan; and NFT thought leaders like Andrew Steinwold, Metapurse, and Bill Lee are all partnering with OpenSea on this journey.
Some existing investors, including 1Confirmation, Pascal Capital, Blockchain Capital, Regan Bozman, Kevin Hartz and Dylan Field from Figma, continue to provide their support through their participation in the investment round.
OpenSea stated: “When we started OpenSea in late 2017, we were excited about the prospect of a brand new economy on the internet. The GDP of the internet is already quite large on an absolute basis, but the internet has distributed its wealth and power in unanticipated and often non ideal ways. Far from the open, wild west days of early web pages and IRC chat, the internet today has consolidated around business models that rely on storing proprietary user data in the cloud. There’s a growing feeling that there are still critical building blocks missing from the internet — building blocks that could provide foundations for more vibrant, open economies in the digital world.”
“At OpenSea, we are growing and shaping this economy by building the world’s best, largest, and most trusted marketplace for this new type of digital asset. Over the coming years, billions of people will be introduced to digital ownership, and we’ve built OpenSea as a trusted entrypoint into that world.”
The platform has welcomed all kinds of creators to launch their projects. Over 20 million NFTs are currently available on the marketplace, as Finzer claims, under full control of the users. Collections like Hashmasks, 3DPunks, CryptoPunks, and others have sold for thousands of ETH. OpenSea’s CEO said in his statement:
We’ve had the fortune to work with hundreds of projects and creators: from game companies to digital artists to musicians to professional athletes. The world is waking up to the power of this technology, and it’s happening quite suddenly.
Over the past months, there has been growing attention on this type of token. The high point of interest was reached when a digital artist known as Beeple sold an NFT for over $70 million on auction house Christie’s.
The sale is the first of its kind and. Via Twitter, Beeple thanked art specialist Noah Davis and spokeswoman for the auction house, Rebecca Riegelhaupt for the “groundbreaking” event:
(…) this unprecedent move took a lot of courage and conviction but true progress always does. the digital art community owes them a debt of gratitude for helping push the space forward and i firmly believe they will eventually be seen as visionaries in the broader art community.
