MakersPlace
It minted Beeple's $69.3 million Christie's NFT; four years later it closed
A marketplace for digital art, started in 2018 by former Pinterest employees, where artists minted their work as NFTs on Ethereum and sold it to collectors paying by card or in ether.
- Capital raised (announced)
- Estimated
Recorded announced backing; this is separate from cash received, customer deposits and money recovered.
Funding
| Round | Date | Announced | Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Series A | 2021 | ||
| Seed | Unknown |
Announced is what was said at the time. Cash actually received is rarely disclosed and is not assumed to match.
People
| Name | Role | Period | Now | Last checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dannie Chu | Jan 2018 – end | Growth, @coinbase | Oct 2026 | |
| Yash Nelapati | Jan 2018 – end | Not established | Oct 2026 |
Timeline
2018
April 2019
MakersPlace took a 15% cut of each sale.
16 January 2025
1/6 MakersPlace Announces Market Exit 🔳 After 6 incredible years of supporting digital art, MakersPlace is ceasing operations. Here’s what it means for our artists, collectors, and supporters—and how we’re ensuring a smooth transition. 🧵↴
16 January 2025
2/6 Reflecting on Our Journey Since 2018, we’ve championed digital art and created tools for artists and collectors. However, ongoing market challenges and funding difficulties have made it impossible to sustain operations while fulfilling our mission.
June 2025
Announced in January 2025; a transfer tool was promised for February.
How it ended
MakersPlace said ongoing market challenges and funding difficulties had made it impossible to keep operating while fulfilling its mission, and that it expected difficulty raising further investment. Art stayed on sale for a limited time and no new exhibitions were held. The company said employees would receive severance and unused funds would be returned to investors, and that NFTs minted on Ethereum would remain tradeable on secondary marketplaces.
Still alive
Open spot
MakersPlace is gone. Is your NFT marketplace still running?
Spotlight your project here.
Sources
11 sources behind this page.
- 1MakersPlace Raises $30M in Funding Round Led by Pantera Capital and Bessemer Venture · CoinDesk · Aug 2021
- 2Digital art venue MakersPlace shuts down amid NFT market decline · Cointelegraph · Jan 2025
- 3Pantera, Coinbase Ventures and Sony back NFT-focused MakersPlace in $30M Series A · Cointelegraph
- 4MakersPlace announces market exit, ends six years of digital art operations · crypto.news · Jan 2025
- 5Pinterest employee #1 launches blockchain art market MakersPlace · National Arts Program Foundation (reproducing a TechCrunch article) · Apr 2019
- 6NFT digital art market MakersPlace raises $30M in Series A funding · SiliconANGLE · Aug 2021
- 7X profile of @dannieb (Dannie Chu) · twitterapi.io (X API), retrieved 3 October 2026
- 8X account lookup: @MakersPlace · twitterapi.io (X data provider)
- 9X search: @MakersPlace posts, 16-17 January 2025 · twitterapi.io (X data provider)
- 10X thread: MakersPlace market exit announcement, 16 January 2025 · twitterapi.io (X data provider) · Jan 2025
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- 11MakersPlace NFT marketplace shuts down · Web3 Is Going Just Great · Jan 2025
Every figure above is clickable and opens the sources behind it. Copies were stored when each source was read, so a citation still resolves after the page it came from is gone.