Going Once, Going Twice, Sold! Peggy Paves the Way for the Artist Royalty Movement

Toronto-based start-up Peggy brings the art world to your fingertips. With Peggy, co-founders Craig Follett and Adam Meghji provide a digital marketplace for buying and selling contemporary art. Peggy partners with more than 30 galleries across the world, such as Art Basel and targets two-dimensional paintings created in the past 25 years or by living artists. 

At the close of 2022, Peggy raised $10.8 million CAD in an equity seed funding round led by Real Ventures. Following this success, Peggy emphasized that “collecting art is proven to be an investment that is stable, reliable, and hedges against unpredictable market conditions and downturns.” As art continues to be a powerful medium for storytelling and expression, Peggy aims to create a more accessible and equitable art ecosystem for emerging artists. For example, Peggy helps artists monetize their art as it is disseminated to the public and sold to future buyers. Peggy offers artists 5% of any subsequent resales of their art on Peggy’s secondary market. 

The art business commonly involves complex questions of authenticity and ownership. To maintain security and trust, Peggy developed patent-pending AI to create digital fingerprints that authenticate the identity of platform participants. Once captured by the platform user’s smartphone camera, these fingerprints are used to register transfers of ownership between sales and can be traced back to the original creator of the work for royalties. Through this process, Peggy users can curate unique collections while the creator benefits from the increased and fluctuating value of their work. 

As Peggy continues to ease the process of market entry for artists, the start-up is set to fulfill its mission of a “world with art in every home”.