We started MakersPlace in 2018 with the belief that there had to be a better way to empower digital creativity. For years, we saw first hand all the issues that plagued digital creators with their works being stolen, misappropriated and undervalued. Fast forward 3 years, and we’re ecstatic to see what we believe to be the biggest shift in the digital creator economy with the advent of blockchain and NFT technology. We couldn’t be more excited about the future ahead, and the role MakersPlace is playing.
2021 has been an incredible year for our community. The number of collectors using our platform grew over 10x, while we facilitated over $100M in transactions. We’ve also continued to empower thousands of the world’s most talented digital artists, offering the most trusted platform to protect and sell their digital art. Most notably, we helped catapult digital art and NFTs onto the global stage, with our historic partnership with Beeple and Christie’s, facilitating the $69.3M sale of Beeple’s EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS — the largest ever sale of a digital artwork. With this we saw a seismic shift in the appreciation for digital art and most importantly its impact to the overall creator community.
Today, we’re excited to announce that MakersPlace has raised $30M to further our mission of enabling a vibrant future for digital creativity. This funding was led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Pantera Captial, with participation from Uncork Capital, Draper Dragon Digital Assets, 9Yards Capital, Coinbase Ventures and Sony Music Entertainment. The funding also includes the following strategic investors: Acquavella Galleries, Sabrina Hahn and Bill Ruprecht in the arts; Eminem, Paul Rosenberg, 3LAU in music, Larry Fitzgerald and Shari Glazer in sports; Eric Baker, Julia and Kevin Hartz, Vinny Lingham and Tobias Lütke in tech, and many more. Every investor brings forward a strong conviction for our mission as well as their expertise and perspective across technology, blockchain, art and media.
Going Forward
We see this fundraise as continued validation for our mission. We willl continue to push boundaries and empower digital creators with better tools and services, while finding more ways to introduce digital art and NFTs to a mainstream collector audience. From the very beginning, we’ve always prioritized trust, quality and ease of use for our artists and our passionate collectors and we’re only going to double down on these efforts.
Finally, we’d like to thank our amazing community of artists and collectors who have been our core inspiration and validation for our team.
If you’re passionate about empowering the future for digital creativity, join us, we’re hiring!
Getting in Touch
If you’re a digital creator, you can learn more about MakersPlace here.
If you think there’s an opportunity to collaborate, we’d also love to hear from you. You can reach us at hello@makersplace.com or on our Discord channel.
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