News & Press
Investment in the Data business unit: Weng Fine Art acquires a stake in technology company Artfacts
23 Sep. 2021 / Pressemitteilungen
Weng Fine Art AG (WFA) has acquired a stake in the Berlin-based technology company Artfacts. The minority shareholding is part of a capital increase in Artfacts.net Ltd. In addition to WFA, a technology investor from Silicon Valley and a group of art market insiders from Great Britain, Germany and Dubai have also invested in Artfacts.
Artfacts has been systematically collecting exhibition data from galleries, fairs and museums since 2001. Based on the data set, exhibition history is aggregated for the respective artists and exhibition institutions. An algorithm calculates the so-called "Artist Ranking" from the data, which relates the cataloged artists to each other, as well as the so-called "Artfacts Ranking", which translates an artist's exhibition activity into a trend line.
In 2021, Artfacts launched the Limna app. The core functionality of the app is to calculate a price for an artwork from the primary market using Artfacts' dataset and artificial intelligence. The Limna technology is already implemented through an interface in König Galerie's (Berlin) online store MISA. Limna also cooperates with Artnet AG, which has been an associated company of WFA since 2020.
Artfacts was founded in 2001 by husband and wife duo Marek Claaßen and Stine Albertsen in Berlin. Shortly before, Kunstmarkt.com AG had started its business, from which today's Weng Fine Art AG emerged. Almost at the same time, Artnet AG went public.
With this investment, WFA expands its third business division, „Data“, which also includes the 26% stake in the art market data provider Artnet.
Melanie Moske, Chief Digital Officer of WFA: "With our investment in Artfacts, we not only secure access to the high-quality database, but also gain new insights into the use of artificial intelligence in the art market. In the medium term, the technology will also become part of our own business processes. We look forward to enriching the Artfacts and Limna team with our art and financial market expertise to help Artfacts grow and identify further potential uses."