Magic Eden is a Solana blockchain-powered NFT marketplace that has recently raised a $27M Series-A venture funding round on Monday. The round was led by Paradigm Ventures and also included participation from Sequoia Capital, Electric Capital, Greylock Partners, Kindred Capital, Variant Fund, Solana Ventures, among others.
What is Magic Eden?
Magic Eden is an NFT marketplace similar to OpenSea and NBA Top Shot but it is built on a high-performance Solana blockchain. It facilitates buying, selling, minting of NFTs and the good thing is users pay 0% listing fee and only 2% transaction fees, which lowers barriers to entry for new and experienced NFT buyers and creators.
Magic Eden was founded in Sep 2021 by Jack Lu, Zhuoxun Yin, and Sidney Zhang. It has seen tremendous growth after its first launch surpassing its competitors in similar space. According to crypto data analysis firm Dune Analytics, 93% of all NFT transactions on the Solana blockchain take place on Magic Eden.
Also, read - Top 10 most searched NFT collections in 2021
How Magic Eden will utilise the Funds?
Where most of the existing NFT marketplace are managing popular digital collectible listings such as Crypto Punk and Bored Ape Yacht Club, Jack Lu has a distinct and far broader vision for 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”
Jack Lu, Magic Eden Founder
The current fundraise will fuel its growth and help with staff expansion, future partnerships, product development, and new initiatives. One of the projects, Magic Eden would now put more focus on would be the MagicDAO - a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) gated by the startup’s NFT (non-fungible token) collection Magic Ticket. It also plans to launch a gaming vertical and an NFT mobile application for the browsing, minting, and trading of NFTs on the go.
[…] Solana powered NFT marketplace Magic Eden raised $27M Series A […]