Magic Eden, a Solana-based leading NFT marketplace, has become a unicorn in less than a year since its launch last September. The latest fundraising round has raised its valuation to $1.6 billion. The founders vowed to ramp up their recruitment spree, despite the declining trend of crypto firms amid a downturn in the market.
a multi-series ambition
Magic Eden – an NFT marketplace that accounts for over 90% of NFT volume on Solana – announced that it has raised an additional $130 million, bringing its valuation to $1.6 billion. According to a source acquired by Bloomberg, this is a nearly tenfold increase from its valuation three months ago.
The news came in the context of a growing wave of pessimism in the cryptocurrency industry, with exchanges such as Coinbase and Gemini largely trimming the size of their workforce to survive months of bear markets. The company decided to go against the headwind, set to nearly triple its headcount to 140 from the current 50 employees.
Magic Eden co-founder Jack Lu said that NFT trading volume on his platform has continued to increase in recent months, although the price of SOL has dropped by more than 80% from ATH. He said the company had $7.5 million in revenue in May and has been profitable since launch. The platform aims to reach $100 million in annual revenue.
Reportedly, the flagship platform on Solana is set to expand its primary and secondary markets and use the newly raised capital to support NFT creators.
Zuoxun Yin, COO of Magic Eden and former Coinbase Product Manager, revealed that the market plans to serve notable NFT projects beyond the Solana network and support multiple blockchains in the future. However, Yin did not specify which blockchain other than Solana would be deployed on the market first.
Its main rival, OpenSea, which currently supports Solana, Ethereum, Klaytn and Polygon, was valued at $13.3 billion as of January this year. Founded less than a year ago, Magic Eden has become one of the top three NFT marketplaces, according to Dappadar. Its primary platform – Launchpad – has over 250 projects, and its secondary market has over 7,000 collections.
solana or ethereum
Sequoia Capital – the renowned VC behind Magic Eden, has previously expressed concern over OpenC’s dominance in the NFT market, stating that the platform could leverage the Solana ecosystem before OpenC expands its services to the blockchain.
Solana has primarily attracted retail investors who are driven by the notable benefit of Solana’s low gas fee for processing NFT transactions. However, the network is also known for its frequent turnoffs due to technical difficulties, leading to temporary suspensions on block production and processing transactions. As such, security is a primary concern with respect to the Solana network.
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