Meet Alessandro and Emilia De Stasio, co-founders of Artscapy
Alessandro and Emilia De Stasio are the co-founders of Artscapy, the platform for fine art collecting, built by collectors for collectors.
As art collectors they have combined their passion for art with their professional backgrounds in business and finance, to create change in the art world. On a mission to make art collecting more accessible, they built Artscapy to break down the barriers they encountered in the art market.
Artscapy is a digital platform that provides a complete set of services to meet every collector's needs, from growing and managing an art collection to learning about collecting through engaging editorials, to exploring and buying art from handpicked galleries and vetted collectors, and much more.
Tell us about the founders behind the brand?
Alessandro, co-founder and CEO of Artscapy, is an experienced business leader, investor, and entrepreneur and has successfully launched and exited digital business ventures, alongside managing multi-million budgets and double-digit teams at FTSE 100 companies. Previously, Alessandro ran the strategy and innovative digital marketing for world-renowned brands in highly competitive and regulated markets. As a fine art collector for the past decade, Alessandro focuses on the modern collector’s needs, with a keen eye toward leveraging the latest technology to make collecting safer, easier, and more accessible.
Emilia, co-founder and COO of Artscapy, is an entrepreneur, startup investor and advisor, as well as speaker and expert panellist at technology and startup events. Building on five years as a financial analyst and published researcher at the European Central Bank and Moody’s Investors Service, she moved into the world of startups as an investment manager, investing in early-stage tech-driven startups across finance, advertising, VR, digital consumer products and software solutions. As a collector, Emilia is particularly interested in exploring different cultures and perceptions of society, life, and the environment and collects works that reflect these themes.
There’s always a lightbulb moment before the beginning of a new venture. What was that moment for you?
The initial idea for Artscapy developed through the frustrations we faced as collectors. When we were considering adding a particular artwork to our collection we found we were struggling to find reliable pricing as well as artwork information that was free from intimidating academic jargon. This was the lightbulb moment for us. We knew there was a real need for a platform that focuses on collectors, that makes art collecting more accessible. We started to generate ideas, and from this point we spoke with other collectors, art advisors, gallerists, and art professionals to build the end-to-end collecting journey that Artscapy provides today.
What inspired you to launch your business and what is the end goal?
We were inspired from our own experience as collectors. We struggled with the lack of digital tools and a safe environment online that is dedicated to collectors to explore and buy quality art. Ultimately, the goal of Artscapy is to be the platform for fine art collecting. We are on a mission to make quality contemporary art more accessible.
What does your business offer its target audience?
When we say that Artscapy is built by collectors for collectors we mean it.
The whole platform spins around a very simple,disruptive question: how does this feature (or process) help new or experienced collectors and art buyers? The question is disruptive because it has never been at the centre of a platform in the same extensive way that it sits within the Artscapy ecosystem.
With Artscapy we want to protect collectors and art buyers, providing not only useful tools, like the collection management system, but also creating a safe and trusted environment where art can be traded and showcased.
As collectors, we believe that in-depth research on artworks hold immense value which is why this is another key focus of the Artscapy platform.
We are very selective when it comes to choosing gallery partners and the curation of the inventory. We are currently the only platform that does due diligence on every artwork that is offered for sale, and this process is stored on a blockchain record so each buyer can be sure that the provenance has been checked. We also have a robust compliance framework that supports the art buying process in order to protect collectors from (often) unknown legal and tax implications. Artscapy is an end-to-end platform for the art industry where the collector/art buyer is in focus
How do you set yourself apart from other businesses in your industry?
In particular, what sets Artscapy apart is the interconnected nature of the platform, where each step in the collecting journey is linked: from managing the collection to exploring new works to buying from handpicked galleries and vetted collectors, which is all underpinned by certificates of authenticity and provenance on blockchain. Artscapy is one of the first online platforms where each artwork must pass a due diligence process before it can be published for sale to facilitate a safe buying experience. Understanding the importance of maintaining privacy around a collection, Artscapy has employed comprehensive measures to ensure data is encrypted and that the collector has full control at all times on how their collections are shared and visualised. Finally, as two founders who have come from heavily regulated industries - banking and gaming - we have already taken an industry-leading approach working directly with regulators to contribute to shaping a safer art sector.
Any new product launches we should know about?
We very recently launched our first fine artwork on a non-fungible token (NFT) as part of the opening of our dedicated marketplace for both digital and physical art. The marketplace for physical artworks is in itself a novelty in the market as collectors can find artworks from a curated set of galleries as well as vetted collectors. It is the first dedicated art marketplace where collectors can sell works directly from their collections to other collectors, where each artwork on sale undergoes a comprehensive due diligence process. Due diligence, especially when the artwork enters the secondary market (i.e. being resold after its initial market release), is vital to protect collectors.
Our involvement in NFTs is focused on selected projects that we feel have the potential to make important artistic contributions, rather than just market hype. For this inaugural project, Artscapy produced an important artwork with Italian fine artist, Filippo Riniolo, in remembrance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. We worked with Riniolo and renowned curators, Francesco Cascino and Gianluca Marziani, to transform a performative artwork, originally presented at the MAXXI Museum in Rome into an interactive digital experience, making it accessible to collectors worldwide as an NFT. Also in this context, we wanted a collector-friendly and art-focused experience on Artscapy, so we made it possible to purchase the artwork using a bank card, as any other online transaction, without the need for an external crypto asset wallet or cryptocurrency payment.
What are your top tips for entrepreneurs wanting to get their business out there?
Taking the leap to start a business is not easy and is one that should be underpinned with research and conscious preparation. To start a business, you need to have a razor-sharp view of the market and have identified a real gap that you can fill. This involves formulating a strong and defendable unique selling point of the business and one that truly sets you apart from competition, and resiliently so. A great litmus test for this is to seek the opinion of people in the industry, investors (angels, retail investors etc) or other founders who have successfully raised funds and launched their businesses. These people can help to point out areas to improve or questions you need to be prepared to answer as you grow your idea.
Another key tip is exploring accelerator programs. For example, the Startup Leadership Program, which Emilia participated in prior to launching Artscapy, was very helpful in both preparing for entrepreneurship and building a support network of other founders to lean on.
Do you prioritise self-care as an entrepreneur?
As an entrepreneur, you need to be performing at your top level every day to drive the greatest results. The beauty of entrepreneurship - and possibly also the curse - is that you have a 1-to-1 relation between your inputs and the outputs for the business. No one will care as much about the business as you and that means you will need to, and want to, give it your all, at all times. To be able to do that, you need to take care of yourself. It is often overlooked, but anxiety and even depression among entrepreneurs is common, as a result of the high pressure that entrepreneurship involves, especially when combined with the responsibility you have for your team as they help to push the project forward.
For us, self-care predominantly takes the shape of prioritising physical activity and exposure to the outdoors, to nature. Physical activity helps to clear the mind while also reducing stress and anxiety, allowing you to see problems in a new light.
How do you believe the evolution of tech will impact your industry over the next 10 years?
The artworld is one of the industries that has been relatively slow to adopt technology from a commercial perspective, and is behind the digitalisation curve compared to many other sectors. At the same time, market data and trends all point to an increasing interest in digital exploration and buying art online: millennials are now outspending any other generation on art, and they are increasingly buying online. As trade of goods and services become more globalised, so has the art world, and in that interconnected world, technology is vital. Technology can help solve many problems and improve processes that were previously manual or more convoluted. A great example of this is our collection management system. Collectors often either keep information about their collections in their minds, in paper records, or they move on to clunky spreadsheets. However, spreadsheets do not allow you to keep track of related documentation, such as purchase invoices and certificates of authenticity, or artwork images. Beyond storing all this information safely, under full encryption, in one place, Artscapy also helps its users to visualise insights about the collection and track changes in value over time.
Looking ahead, the physical and the digital will merge, and more interactive and immersive experiences are likely to shape how we interact with art. Developments within the blockchain space and virtual worlds can open up new avenues for art participants to engage and collaborate from production, to curation, to visualisation. The ability to use blockchain to catalogue and create digital, certified editions of physical artworks can create new possibilities to share art historical knowledge and allow for greater cultural expansion. These are spaces we are watching closely and actively exploring with art institutions and other partners.
Why blockchain technology?
Before deciding which technology to adopt we start with the problem that we would like to solve. We are looking to bring transparency, trust, and safety into an increasingly globalised art industry. Certification and traceability are therefore key to succeed in this challenge. Blockchain technology offers the most efficient and secure way to meet this purpose and has the potential to make a great positive impact on the art industry.
At Artscapy, we developed and implemented blockchain technology in the context of making art collecting more transparent and secure in three ways:
1. Certificate of Provenance (COP)- Any artwork offered for sale on Artscapy’s marketplace undergoes due diligence. This process is captured in a data record on the blockchain and is then transferred to the new owner of the artwork once the transaction has completed. This is the first time that this due diligence process has been captured as a record on the blockchain.
2. Certificate of Authenticity (COA)- This represents a way to prove, or certify, that an artwork is genuine, a service we reserve for art professionals that represent artists or to artists themselves.
3. Digital Art on NFT that is accessible to buy: It was essential for us to make it possible for collectors to be able to buy NFTs using a bank card, without the need for an external crypto asset wallet or cryptocurrency payment.
Where do you draw your inspiration from to continue pursuing and innovating in the tech space?
We think that technology is a means not the goal, therefore our inspiration comes from the dream of improving the status quo of the industry. We decided to start from the ultimate consumer of the art, which is the collector or the art buyer. Being part of a new generation of collectors is an eye-opener, and with immense curiosity, we explore the power and the possibilities that technology brings in order to make art collecting safer and more accessible. This means we are constantly in conversation with technological innovators from within and outside of the art industry to see how we can bring new ideas to life. We are inherently very curious people, so as founders, it means we are constantly reading and absorbing new information and ideas.
