Artyii Is A Sales And Social Platform For Asian Artists

There are enormously talented emerging artists in Asia but many lack the opportunity to showcase their brilliant work. They finally can, thanks to Artyii.

Singapore based start-up, Artyii, is a sales and social platform for emerging Asian artists to sell, learn and network with the art circle which includes gallery owners, art schools, independent art groups and curators. The site also provides a dedicated suite of services such as payment, logistics, framing, liaison, escrow for Asian artists.

Since its founding in July 2010, Artyii has over 1000 quality art pieces and about 400 artists on board. To maintain high standards, artists are added to the network through an “invite only” basis. Artists also have their work vetted through a panel of art professionals before joining Artyii. The tough selection process rejects about 40 percent of the artists who applied.

Quality is instilled within the network: Through Artyii, some artists have already been formally picked up by galleries and have gone on to sell their works at art shows.

“Both of us love art – we saw art around us and have peers in art schools that are having difficulty selling their work and getting formal representation. My co-founder, Cai Lin, comes from an artistic family while I appreciate good poetry and painting.  When we were tasked to come up with a business plan as part of a class requirement, we thought, “Why not?” SPRING Singapore was supportative of our plan and before we knew it, we were on our way,” said Shannon Lim, CEO and co-founder of Artyii when asked on what inspired the team to start Artyii.

Artyii charges a low markup of 25% per sales transaction (as compared to traditional galleries). Besides a below average cut, artists are happy because they get to set their own prices based on certain parameters set by Artyii.

To cater for Asia’s language diversity, Artyii is also available in Vietnamese, Bahasa Indonesia and Chinese. The start-up is certainly bridging a gap in the market. It would be exciting to witness Artyii’s journey to become a giant Asian art portal in the near future. Kudos for promoting Asian art.

This article was first published on Penn-Olson, a tech, business and marketing blog focusing on US and Asia. Penn-Olson is a Young Upstarts content partner.