“It is becoming increasingly clear that blockchains represent one of the most exciting paradigm shifts in the history of technology,” the company said in a statement. “Just as the Internet has transformed the global distribution of information, blockchains will reinvent the global distribution of value,” he added.
The leading non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea raised $ 100 million in a Series B funding round led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z, he said on Tuesday.
The additional funding round brings the valuation of New York-based OpenSea to $ 1.5 billion, which gives the company unicorn status, that is, when a private company or startup is valued at over a billion dollars. It is one of more than 900 unicorns in the global market with a collective value of $ 3 trillion, according to data from the Crunchbase Unicorn Board.
The company also announced cross-blockchain support, with a gas-free market on the polygon blockchain. This means that buyers do not have to pay blockchain fees when transacting on OpenSea, he added.
“It’s becoming increasingly clear that blockchains represent one of the most exciting paradigm shifts in tech history,” the company said in a blog post. “Just as the Internet has transformed the global distribution of information, blockchains will reinvent the global distribution of value,” he added.
The round was led by a16z, which announced in late June that it was launching a $ 2.2 billion crypto fund that will invest in crypto-based networks and the founders and teams that are currently building in space. of digital assets, Blockworks reported.
On Monday, a16z announced that it had promoted Arianna Simpson to general partner, about a year after joining the company.
Participants in this round include Coatue, as well as Michael Ovitz, Kevin Hartz, Dylan Field, Kevin Durant, Ashton Kutcher and Tobie Lutke.
With this fundraising, OpenSea will continue to develop its NFT market by recruiting new talents and expanding globally in new markets.
The new funding follows OpenSea’s latest funding round of $ 23 million, also led by a16z, which was announced in March.
In general, there have been more headlines and adoption of DTVs as consumers want to buy digital products. NFTs are a simple primitive for digital products like digital art, game objects, domain names and more, while offering whole new properties, OpenSea wrote.
In June, Binance launched its NFT marketplace with an auction featuring works by Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali, Blockworks reported.
“NFT technology has revolutionized the art world for good, bringing the concept of digital ownership to life for the very first time,” Binance said in the press release.
In 2021, the NFT market exceeded expectations with analysis showing growth between 1785% and 21% in the first three months of 2021 alone, totaling more than $ 2 billion spent on NFT collectibles.
While some speculate on the sustainability of NFT’s growth, the market continues to evolve and be promoted by celebrities and art connoisseurs. NFTs are sold to collectors and cryptocurrency enthusiasts for millions of dollars in the hope of being the sole owner of these digital assets.
“NFTs represent the building blocks of whole new peer-to-peer economies, where users have greater freedom and ownership over their data, and developers can create powerful, interoperable applications to deliver real economic value to users,” said declared the company.
