With a $100 Million Funding, OpenSea Is Now The New Crypto Unicorn

• Avinandan Banerjee
• September 27, 2022

NFTs or Non Fungible Tokens are collectibles in the form of art, music, trading cards or event tickets, basically anything digital or physical with a collectible value which is minted into digital tokens and thereafter traded. OpenSea is regarded as the biggest marketplace for Non Fungible Tokens or NFTs as they are widely popular. 

In a Series B funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, OpenSea has raised $100 million, becoming the new unicorn of the crypto collectibles market. This single event has proved that even though the recent trends in the NFT market were showing a somewhat downward trend in terms of users and also in transaction volumes, the venture capitalists at this moment continue to have an extremely bullish outlook when it comes to Non Fungible tokens and the future they promise.

Apart from the investor Andreessen Horowitz or a16z, the Series B funding round had other participants such as Coatue, which is an investment management company, Creative Artists Agency and celebrity investor Ashton Kutcher. Shawn Mendes and Kevin Durant were among the other investors who were also present on the funding occasion. This latest round of funding has helped OpenSea obtain a valuation of $1.5 billion, which has rendered the NFT platform as the recent unicorn in the world of crypto marketplaces. Although this fundraiser sounds huge, in actuality this fundraiser is not even close to the biggest fundraisers in the NFT industry. The competitors of OpenSea Dapper Labs and Sorare had raised staggering amounts of funding amounting to $305 million and $532 million respectively. These events undoubtedly point out that there is a rising demand and a lot of hope centered around Non Fungible tokens and what it can do in the future.

Already it is almost evident that Non Fungible tokens can be used for physical objects as well and some have even claimed, quite successfully so, that this technology can even be applied to cases concerning real estate, which in itself is quite a revelation. If it can be applied to something like real estate other than digital assets, then naturally it is beyond comprehension what diverse ways there can be to explore the applications of NFTs. This is partly the reason why their popularity is growing day by day.

Kathryn Haun, who is the general partner at Anderessen Horowitz, will be joining the Board of Directors of OpenSea. Kathryn said that the team of OpenSea has realized long back that it was necessary to create a marketplace which is open and facilitates cross blockchain transactions where individuals will have the freedom to create Digital Non Fungible Tokens, buy and sell art without any hassle. The OpenSea NFT marketplace was created keeping all these things in mind and they do provide all these services on their platform. She said that this is one of the primary reasons as to why OpenSea is one of the foremost and leading companies in the world that are dealing with digital assets such as NFTs. She further added that as investors, they are extremely thrilled to strengthen their commitment to the team of OpenSea, the technologies at their disposal and most importantly their vision for the future, which is to provide the optimum level of user experience for the new generation of artists and content creators, sellers and buyers all under one roof, on the same platform.

The funds received by OpenSea will be primarily used for continuing and building the cross blockchain support on the OpenSea platform, improving the user experience tenfold and continuing to grow the team. Initially OpenSea only supported buying and minting NFTs on Ethereum, which has been afflicted by congestion and extremely high transaction fees. However OpenSea has announced that they are willing to support the scaling platforms for Ethereum, the Klatyn and Polygon blockchain. Not only that, they have also announced that in future they are planning to advance to Tezos and Flow as well. 

The CEO of OpenSea, Devin Finzer exclaimed that they have been noticing a growing surge of excitement regarding the developments taking place in the OpenSea team. Everyone starting from artists, designers, engineers are all very excited to see and experience the new face of openSea and the progressions they are making. He even added that even though it might sound a little dowdy, he feels as if this is the birth of an entirely new form of internet. He mentioned that this is in fact the most opportune moment for them to go and grab the chances and make it work. Their ultimate goal or vision is to make a difference in the lives of people and enable them to be a part of the real economy and not just a part of some ecosystem that is closed off from the masses.