In a blog post, the company says that it plans to use this capital to accelerate product development and improve customer support.
OpenSea has raised $300 million in a Series C funding round — taking the NFT marketplace's total valuation to a whopping $13.3 billion.
In a blog post, the company says that it plans to use this capital to accelerate product development, improve customer support and levels of safety on the platform, "meaningfully invest in the wider NFT and Web3 community," and grow its team further.
Devin Finzer, OpenSea's co-founder and CEO, said 2021 delivered a watershed moment for non-fungible tokens — with users receiving "greater freedom and ownership over digital goods."
Looking forward, he shared an ambition that his company will become the "world's friendliest and most trusted NFT marketplace with the best selection."
Following the departure of Nate Chastain as head of product — following on from an insider trading scandal — Finzer also took the opportunity to welcome Shiva Rajaraman as the platform's VP of product. He's previously worked at Meta, YouTube, Spotify and WeWork.
Finzer also revealed that OpenSea plans to double its customer support and trust and safety teams by the end of the year — divisions that already employ more than 60 people. And with a hiring spree planned for other departments, he added:
"We saw the NFT ecosystem explode last year, with OpenSea’s transaction volume increasing over 600x in 2021. But we’re just getting started – and we need to scale our team quickly!"
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What's Ahead in 2022
There's no disputing that OpenSea has enjoyed some pretty immense growth over the past 12 months. But with NFTs meaningfully punching into the mainstream, it's going to have a lot more competition in the year ahead.
Coinbase is gearing up to launch its very own NFT marketplace, not to mention big entertainment brands including ViacomCBS.
