MakersPlace attracted interest from a series of investors after facilitating the sale of Beeple’s NFT artwork, which broke the record for $ 69 million.
The NFT MakersPlace platform yesterday announced the conclusion of its Series A round, led by Pantera Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners, in which it raised $ 30 million. The round also saw the participation of Coinbase Ventures, 9Yards Capital, Uncork Capital, Sony Music Entertainment and Draper Dragon Digital Assets.
MakersPlace was founded in 2018 to provide a marketplace for digital creators where their work would not be undervalued, hijacked or stolen. Blockchain and non-fungible token (NFT) technologies have provided the perfect solution to these problems.
Creators can sign and issue their works on the blockchain, making their authenticity digitally verifiable. Collectors can exhibit their purchases, as well as resell them on digital asset exchanges.
Through its partnership with Beeple and Christie’s auction house, MakersPlace allowed the sale of Beeple’s famous $ 69 million work, which broke all price records for NFT sales.
The platform supports thousands of digital artists from around the world and has grown significantly this year, with ten times as many collectors and transactions worth more than $ 100 million.
The Series A funding round was also supported by well-known strategic investors in other sectors. These include technology entrepreneurs Tobias Lütke and Vinny Lingham, American football player Larry Fitzgerald, musicians Eminem and 3LAU, and arts greats such as Bill Ruprecht and Acquavella Galleries.
It’s perhaps no surprise that MakersPlace has attracted so much interest from investors, given the dramatic boom in NFT popularity over the past few months. Under Reuters, $ 2.5 billion in NFT sales were recorded in the first half of 2021 alone, an incredible increase of 18,150% compared to the volume of NFT sales in the first half of 2020.
Many other NFT platforms have benefited from investments as a result of this boom. SuperRare raised $ 9 million in its Series A in March, Nifty raised $ 10 million in its round in July, and OpenSea recently raised another $ 100 million in its Series B, giving it a valuation of $ 1.5 billion.
MakersPlace will use this new funding to provide better tools and services to its digital creators as part of its mission to bring NFTs and digital art to a wider audience.
