Key Takeaways
OpenSea has closed its Series C funding round, raising $300 million from several new and existing investors.
The latest raise values the company at $13.3 billion.
OpenSea will use the funds to accelerate product development, launch a grant program, and hire new staff.
OpenSea has secured another $300 million in its Series C funding round, giving the company a $13.3 billion post-money valuation.
OpenSea Valued at $13.3B OpenSea is kicking off 2022 with another mammoth raise.
The leading NFT marketplace announced the end of its Series C funding round Monday, raising $300 million at a $13.3 billion valuation. Venture capital firms Paradigm and Coatue led the round, with several new and existing investors also participating.
The latest raise follows two fundiung rounds it conducted in 2021 amid NFT technology’s first mainstream boom. In March, it completed a Series A round that saw participation from angel investors like Mark Cuban and Tim Ferris. Following that, in July, it closed a $100 million Series B funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz that valued the firm at $1.5 billion.
In a blog post announcing the raise, OpenSea outlined four key goals it is aiming to achieve with its latest cash injection, stating:
“We have four goals for this funding: 1) accelerate product development, 2) significantly improve customer support and customer safety, 3) meaningfully invest in the wider NFT and Web3 community, and 4) grow our team.”
To boost OpenSea’s product development, the company has hired a new VP of Product to help fill the gap left by Nate Chastain, its previous Head of Product. Chastain memorably left the company in September after he was caught insider trading NFTs listed on OpenSea. Shiva Rajaraman will now lead OpenSea’s product development, joining the company from Meta, where he was the VP of Commerce.
Also noted is OpenSea’s commitment to investing in the NFT community. The firm has stated that funds from its latest raise will go toward launching a grant program, directly supporting the “developers, builders, and creators shaping the future of the NFT space.”
OpenSea’s relationship with NTF creators took a hit in December when the company’s new CFO Brian Roberts hinted at taking the firm public to raise more capital. Many in the NFT community had hoped OpenSea would partly decentralize through issuing a token via an airdrop to early adopters. However, talks of an Initial Public Offering have dashed hopes that OpenSea will reward users through an airdrop.
In addition to product development and community investment, OpenSea will also use the new raise to keep its house in order by improving customer support and growing its talent pool. The company states it expects to double its customer support team of 60 people by the end of 2022. Additionally, OpenSea has posted job listings for new brand and music partnership managers, a community manager, as well as several more engineers and product designers.
OpenSea had a landslide year in 2021 as NFTs went mainstream, taking over $14 billion in revenue over 12 months. With the latest raise, the firm will have its sights set on further expansion as the technology grows.
Disclosure: At the time of writing this feature, the author owned ETH and several other cryptocurrencies.
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