NFT Platform OpenSea Raised $23M In Funding Led By a16z

NFT platform OpenSea raised $23 million in a new funding round led by a16z according to the announcement that we have today in our crypto news.

The announcement by OpenSea read:

“We’re excited to announce our $23M fundraise, with an incredible set of partners to support us on this journey.”

The funding round was led by a16z which is the crypto-focused arm of Andreessen Horowitz, the well-known venture capital company. Other participants included Mark Cuban, Tim Ferris, angel investor Naval Ravikant, Ben Silbermann, and Alexis Ohanian. Before the influx of new funding, OpenSea saw huge growth over the past months along with the entire NFT industry. For example, in February $95 million worth of crypto were sold on the marketplace compared to the $8 million in January. Kathryn Haun commented:

 “We just think there is a huge market. I mean, look at Apple last year. People purchased $61 billion of digital content on the App Store. We don’t think [the NFT boom is] silly or faddish at all. We recognize there could be cycles. We’re crypto investors, so we’re very comfortable with that and we’re very used to it. We’re in this for the long haul.”

Announcing our $23M Series A, led by @a16zhttps://t.co/WlM1tngJDH

— OpenSea (@opensea) March 18, 2021

The co-founder and CEO of OpenSea Devin Finzer even said that he didn’t expect things to go big so fast:

 “We really wanted to bring on a lot of folks who combine the crypto world with the sort of artist and creative world, because that’s where we see NFT’s really blossoming. NFT’s make this space just so much more accessible.”

The most expensive NFT has been selling between thousands to tens of millions of dollars and considering that the mainstream media played attention as of late, things are about to get even more interesting.

As recently reported, OpenSea is an NFT marketplace that has the biggest monthly volume in the industry and it only supported Etheruem-based NFTs so far but this is about to change. OpenSea announced it will start minting on the Tezos blockchain. This means that the NFTs that are minted on Tezos will be able to be stored, viewed, and traded on OpenSea.Right now you can mint NFTs on the Tezos-based minting platform OpenMinter while another option to mint it is through Hicetnunc as well as Kalemint that will go live on the 18^th of this month.