Brian and Eamonn Fallon, successful entrepreneurs and founders of Ireland’s leading property website daft.ie, have invested £200,000 in Artfinder.
Artfinder is a VC funded startup, backed by the investors behind Spotify and Zoopla. Investors include Wellington Partners, Oxford Capital, Cambridge Angels, plus private investors in the UK, the US and Switzerland. In August 2019, Artfinder became the art world’s first B Corp, solidifying its commitment to its values to support artists and make art affordable and accessible.
This completes the business’ successful funding round at a total of £1m. The investment was made through DML Capital Ltd, the parent company of Distilled Media Group, co-owners of daft.ie and other Irish online marketplaces including DoneDeal.ie and Adverts.ie. The Fallon brothers bring years of experience running successful enterprises that combined now reach more than 1 in 2 adults in Ireland.
Online art sales grow 160% amid the pandemic
Demand for buying art online continues to soar, as online art marketplace, Artfinder, yet again records its best sales quarter in its seven year history. Sales in Q3 2020 were up over 160% on prior year, or 11% on the prior record breaking Q2.
Brian Fallon said: ‘We’re very excited to have found Artfinder, a global marketplace, providing unique affordable art online and a Certified B Corporation too. Those ethical credentials are really important to us and give Artfinder a clear point of difference in the market. The company has shown tremendous progress growing its community of independent artists and we look forward to working with the team on taking Artfinder’s growth to new heights.’
CEO Michal Szczesny comments: ‘It is truly incredible to see Artfinder’s growth accelerate further to 160% year on year and coming into peak season in Q4, we expect this growth to accelerate further. We are now helping more artists than ever before make a living, and this could not be any more important in the face of the global pandemic.
“With this new investment from Brian and Eamonn we look to further scale our platform, bringing affordable, accessible art directly from the artists to thousands more customers.”
This investment completes Artfinder’s first crowdfunding campaign, which raised £834,056 from 1,320 investors in four weeks and valued the business at £10m pre-investment.
The money raised will be used to deliver faster artist payments, an improved seller and buyer experience on the platform, improved customer service and scaled up customer recruitment to bring art to a wider audience of collectors and help more artists sell.