We all have our opinions about art (even if that opinion is just I don’t get it) — but what about art as an investment?
Arthena, which is part of the current batch of startups at Y Combinator, says it can help investors make money reliably from art. Founder and CEO Madelaine D’Angelo said Arthena first launched as an equity crowdfunding platform for purchasing art. More recently, it’s added financial tools to create “accommodate that quantitative strategy for the art market.”
Specifically, Arthena looks at factors like a work’s artist, their career and the year of creation, then combines that with analysis of art auction results to predict a piece’s likely risk and return on investment. This analysis allows investors to put money into different Arthena funds based on their risk tolerance.
D’Angelo said Arthena built these tools out of necessity, because wealth managers and other big investors were interested in participating — but first, Arthena needed to provide “the…