OpenSea Founders Both Billionaires After Latest Fundraising

Devin Finzer and Alex Attalah, co-founders of OpenSea, are officially billionaires following a fresh funding round earlier this month that values the company at $13.3 billion, up from $1.5 billion six months ago. With $18.5% stakes in OpenSea, both men are now worth approximately $2.2 billion.

Founded four years ago, OpenSea has grown rapidly over the past year. In March 2020, the five-person outfit counted roughly 4,000 active users doing $1.1 million in monthly transactions, for about $28,000 in monthly revenue. Its luck changed in February 2021, when platforms like Nifty Gateway generated buzz by auctioning off high-end digital art. By July, OpenSea had closed a $100 million funding round led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and recorded about $350 million worth of transactions that month. The next month, transactions hit $3.4 billion—a staggering tenfold increase that earned the company $85 million in revenue from commissions. The NFT market cooled off slightly in the months that followed, before heating up again in December. OpenSea processed more than $3.3 billion worth of sales last month, generating about $82.5 million in revenue for itself. Today, the company employs more than 70 people. 

Since its start, OpenSea has raised more than $420 million from investors, according to data from PitchBook. The $300 million series C haul announced earlier this month was led by venture capital firms Paradigm and Coatue. OpenSea says it plans to increase its headcount, with a focus on its “trust and safety” teams, and invest in making its products more accessible to a wider audience. 

OpenSea faces heightened competition, including from crypto giant Coinbase, which in October announced plans to launch its own NFT exchange. Critics have also called out the potential for fraud and scams in the NFT world. In September, Finzer requested the resignation of OpenSea’s head of product after he was discovered to be buying NFTs shortly before they went live on the marketplace. And, just last week, a New York art gallery reportedly claimed that $2.2 million worth of NFTs had been stolen from him and listed on OpenSea. 

(All information was provided by Forbes)