OpenSea, one of the leading marketplaces for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), has expanded its presence in the world of decentralized finance with the acquisition of Dharma Labs, an emerging company in the global DeFi ecosystem.
The news came almost two weeks after OpenSea secured a whopping $300 million in its Series C investment round and reached a valuation of $13.3 billion. According to the company, the latest acquisition will enhance the adoption of NFTs and Web3.
For 2022, OpenSea outlined 4 key priorities, including the acceleration of the company’s product development, the safety of its clients, investments in NFTs and Web3 ecosystem and the expansion of its team.
“The team at Dharma is among the most talented and respected consumer crypto teams in the world, having built beloved experiences for seamlessly onboarding fiat currency to blockchains. Our teams share a vision that NFTs will be the cultural focal point of crypto’s adoption for years to come, and that vision can only be realized if using NFTs becomes easy & delightful for the average person,” Devin Finzer, the Co-Founder and CEO of OpenSea, said in a blog.
Appointment of New CTO
In addition to the acquisition, OpenSea has announced the appointment of Nadav Hollander, the Co-Founder and CEO of Dharma Labs, as the company’s new Chief Technology Officer. Hollander has a strong technical background in the global crypto ecosystem. He previously worked as a Software Engineer at the digital exchange, Coinbase.
“Nadav is a seasoned leader from the early Ethereum community, having built, launched and evangelized some of the most influential protocols & products in the DeFi space. He brings fresh crypto-native expertise to OpenSea’s leadership, having spent his career building systems that adeptly mask the complexities of smart contracts and blockchains for use by mainstream consumers,” Finzer added in the blog.
