MakersPlace, a nonfungible token (NFT) market dedicated to digital art, has secured $30 million in Series A financing, highlighting once again that venture funds are keen to back promising NFT plays.
The funding round will be used by MakersPlace to scale business operations and acquire additional talent as it continues to attract new users and artists to its platform.
The investment was co-led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Pantera Capital, with additional participation from Coinbase Ventures, Sony Music Entertainment, Uncork Capital, Dragon Digital Assets and 9Yards Capital. Several notable angel investors also participated in the round, including Acquavella Galleries, Sabrina Hahn, Eminem and Paul Rosenberg.
Founded in 2018, MakersPlace is said to have played a “central role in sparking the global conversation about NFTs,” according to co-founder and CEO Dannie Chu. The Series A investment round will further aid MakersPlace in “uniting the best digital artists with the most passionate collectors and continue to bring this new medium for creativity and collecting to a mainstream audience,” he said.
MakersPlace was certainly instrumental in bringing NFTs to mainstream audiences after it sourced and minted Beeple’s now-famous “The First 5000 Days” piece, which sold in March for a staggering $69.3 million.
Related: NFT sales top $2.5B in first half of 2021
Paul Veradittakit, a partner at Pantera Capital, said his firm believes that NFTs will power the next generation of digital art and collectibles, adding:
“MakersPlace has formed a top-notch team that has designed a user experience that seamlessly introduces creators and collectors to this new paradigm.”
NFTs are among the most widely talked about applications of blockchain technology, with sales and listings of digital collectibles growing rapidly this year. As Cointelegraph reported, NFT marketplace OpenSea recently processed more volume in a day than it did in all of 2020.
Meanwhile, ConsenSys founder Joe Lubin recently told Cointelegraph that NFTs will become a major focus for the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, an industry group focused on advancing use cases and collaboration around smart contracts and blockchain technology.