DES MOINES, Iowa, Dec. 6, 2018 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Since its founding in 2017 Masterworks.io has had one mission—to democratize ownership of multi-million dollar masterpieces. Masterworks has created the first public art investment platform that lets anyone invest in some of the world's most iconic artworks. The company purchases blue-chip paintings for millions of dollars—and gives investors the opportunity to purchase shares in a special purpose entity that owns the specific piece, from investments starting at $500.
Masterworks has been featured by CNN, Forbes and the Wall Street Journal and is offering shares of paintings by such luminaries as Claude Monet and Andy Warhol. According to Artprice, an index of the artists whose pieces Masterworks purchases, blue-chip artwork has outperformed the S&P 500 by more than 250% since 2000.
Furthermore, the index suggests that fine art proved far more resilient to the 2008/2009 financial crisis, dropping just 26% vs the S&P 500 of 57%.
"Outside of technology start-ups, I've made higher returns investing in art than anything else," Scott W. Lynn, founder of Masterworks, says.
Paintings at this level, however, have historically only been available for those ultra-high networth individuals. Masterworks is working to democratize fine arts investing. Investors can now purchase shares and see returns through the sale of the painting or trading.
To accept payments for shares electronically, Masterworks turned to Dwolla, a payments platform.
Dwolla, Inc. is a financial technology company that offers businesses an onramp to the Automated Clearing House Network, an electronic network of financial institutions that moves $43 trillion dollars annually.
Masterworks' users send funds to an account that Masterworks has set up for each individual piece of art. These transactions happen across the ACH Network using the Dwolla integrated API.
#DWOLLApowers Masterworks
About Masterworks
Masterworks is the first company to allow investors to buy and trade shares in multi-million dollar masterpieces created by world-renowned artists. By strategically purchasing investment-grade works of art, Masterworks is democratizing the art world by making high-end art investment accessible to everyone.
About Scott W. Lynn
Scott Lynn is an Internet entrepreneur who has founded, acquired, or acted as a majority-investor in over a dozen advertising technology, content and fintech companies. An active collector of contemporary art for over fifteen years, Mr. Lynn has has built an internationally-recognized collection of Abstract Expressionism that has included works by Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning and more. Mr. Lynn's collection has been exhibited at several major museums, including MoMA, National Gallery of Art, the Royal Academy of Arts in London and more.
To learn more about Masterworks or to join the waiting list for Andy Warhol's 1 Colored Marilyn (Reversal Series), visit http://www.masterworks.io.
About Dwolla
Dwolla, Inc. is a financial technology company that is changing the way businesses send and receive funds. The company offers a seamless, white label API platform to connect to the ACH Network to initiate payments.
Since 2010, when Dwolla began creating the ideal platform to move money, the company has helped move billions of dollars, integrated with hundreds of customers and has been mentioned in Inc., Forbes and the Wall Street Journal. Businesses that need to efficiently send or receive money and are ready for the future either use Dwolla—or they should. Learn more at http://www.dwolla.com/
Media Inquiries:
Richard McBeath
Masterworks
rmcbeath(at)masterworks(dot)io
Media Contact:
Jenna Humpal
Dwolla, Inc.
media(at)dwolla(dot)com
SOURCE Dwolla Inc.
Share this article