Christie’s…Ventures?  The venerable art auction house is starting its own in-house venture arm called Christie’s Ventures that will provide seed financing to tech startups.  The focus will be on technologies including those designed to help resolve authenticity disputes, track and catalog art owners more efficiently as well as safe storage and sale of digital assets such as NFTs.

It’s definitely a different track for the auction house strategically, since it hasn’t had any outside stakes in a company besides its purchase of the now closed Haunch of Venison gallery in 2007. 

The move into venture may be, in part, a reaction to Sotheby’s activities which lately have included buying a number of outside stakes in companies – including the creation and launch of tech design studio called Mojito focused on virtual spaces.

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