Magic Eden Raises $27M To Challenge NFT Marketplace Opensea

Solana-based NFT marketplace, Magic Eden announced on Monday, March 14, it has raised $27 million in a Series A round led by Paradigm. Sequoia, Electric, Greylock, Kindred, Variant, and Solana Ventures also participated in the round. Launched in September 2021, Magic Eden is one of the leading NFT marketplaces on the Solana network.

“Magic Eden will be much more than a place for users to purchase NFTs,” said Jack Lu, CEO and Co-founder of Magic Eden. “Our goal is to make a clear distinction between Web2 and Web3, allowing creators, collectors and supporters to engage with each other and lead the direction of their online interactions.”

Magic Eden is the largest marketplace in the Solana ecosystem

Led by former DeFi, hospitality, retail, and tech leaders, Magic Eden is a community-focused NFT marketplace on Solana. The platform aims to bring together an excellent user-friendly experience and cutting-edge tools to help creators mint hassle-free. Creators on the platform can also utilise Magic Eden’s educational resources and analytical tools for their projects. 

Since its launch last year, Magic Eden has become one of the leading NFT marketplaces in the space. In fact, in October 2021, the platform eclipsed OpenSea’s total daily NFT transactions. Currently, Magic Eden claims to hold over 90% total market share for Solana NFT marketplaces, in terms of both volume and number of transactions. Besides, it also holds more than 90% market share for the secondary trading volume of NFT games. 

Furthermore, Magic Eden recently launched its DAO—MagicDAO. The DAO is gated by the platform’s NFT collection, Magic Ticket. Apparently, it dropped 30,000 NFTs in the collection to its most active community members. The DAO revolves around three pillars—social interconnectivity, rewards, and governance. Actually, members of the DAO can vote on the collections to be featured on the homepage every week. 

Magic Eden’s strength lies in its stellar team. Its founding team comes with a wealth of experience in crypto, hospitality, and tech. The team members have previously worked with giants like dYdX, FTX, Coinbase, Marriott International, Google, Facebook, and Uber. In a span of six months, the company of four co-founders has grown to 60 full-time employees.

How will the funds be used?

Magic Eden will use the latest funds to expand the team, invest in partnerships, and build a gaming vertical. In addition, parts of the funds will also go towards launching their first NFT mobile application. The app will enable users to browse, mint and trade NFTs on the go. These steps are likely to further challenge OpenSea’s dominance in the NFT space. 

“Magic Eden has earned its place as the leading NFT marketplace on Solana because of their devotion to building a simple, intuitive user experience,” said Arjun Balaji, investment partner at Paradigm. “As NFTs break out to more mainstream audiences, we’re confident that the customer-obsessed team at Magic Eden can help lead the way.”