NFT marketplace SuperRare cuts 30% of staff

The NFT marketplace SuperRare 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’s become clear that this aggressive growth was unsustainable,” Crain wrote. “We over-hired, and I take full ownership of this mistake.”

TechCrunch reached out to Crain for comment.

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

SuperRare differentiates itself from competitors by focusing more closely on working with artists, but broader platforms like OpenSea were more successfully able to take advantage of the bull market. Yet even though OpenSea has managed to raise at a possibly inflated valuation of over $13 billion, it has not been immune to the downmarket. The company laid off 20% of its staff, leaving it with 230 employees, in July.

“We know that there is still much innovation and transformation yet to come for Web3, NFTs, cryptoart, decentralized finance and governance,” Crain wrote. “We are facing headwinds, yes — but there remains an incredible uncaptured opportunity as we continue building something totally new.”