NFT SuperRare market cuts 30% of its staff • TechCrunch

The NFT SuperRare market is cutting 30% of its staff, according to a Slack message from CEO John Crain. Crain posted a screenshot of the message on Twitter.

“During the recent bull run, we grew in tandem with the market. In recent months, it has become clear that this aggressive growth is not sustainable,” Crain wrote. “We have over-hired and I fully accept this error.”

TechCrunch has reached out to Crain for comment.

SuperRare raised $9M in Series A in March 2021, led by Velvet Sea Ventures and 1 confirmation. The round also included celebrity investors like Mark Cuban, Marc Benioff and Ashton Kutcher.

SuperRare differentiates itself from its competitors by focusing more narrowly on working with artists, but broader platforms like OpenSea have been more successful in capitalizing on the bull market. Yet even though OpenSea managed to rise to a possibly inflated valuation of over $13 billion, it was not immune to the market downturn. The company laid off 20% of its workforce, or about 230 employees, in July.

“We know there is still a lot of innovation and transformation ahead for Web3, NFTs, cryptoart, decentralized finance and governance,” Crain wrote. “We are facing headwinds, yes, but there remains an incredible untapped opportunity as we continue to build something totally new.”