OpenSea, the top NFT marketplace in the world, has just announced that it raised $300 million USD in its Series C funding round led by Paradigm and Coatue, valuing the marketplace at $13.3 billion USD. The company was previously valued at $1.5 billion just last year in its 2020 Series B round, bringing in $100 million USD.
The new sky-high figure is a direct reflection of the rapidly-rising global appeal of NFTs. OpenSea currently houses the most popular collections in the space led by projects such as Bored Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunks, Clone X by Takashi Murakami, Decentraland, and The Sandbox. It recently had its second-largest month of trading ever hitting $3 billion USD in the month of December, and had its third-best trading day ever on January 2, recording $243 million USD in daily Ethereum NFT transaction volume.
According to a blog post from OpenSea CFO, Devin Finzer, the new funding will be used to “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,” on its mission to become “the core destination for new open digital economies to thrive, building the world’s friendliest and most trusted NFT marketplace with the best selection.”
Elsewhere, Bored Ape Yacht Club surpasses $1 Billion USD in total traded volume on OpenSea.
wazup.