YourArt, the online art distribution group founded and chaired by former Publicis chief executive Maurice Lévy, announced in mid-October 2026 that it had acquired Artsper, the French marketplace for contemporary art. FrenchWeb reported the deal on October 15.
The price was not disclosed, and the companies did not publish detailed financial results.
Artsper will keep its own brand, positioning and client base, as will ArtMajeur, the marketplace YourArt combined with about two years earlier. Shared functions and some technology will be pooled. Stéphane Lévy, chief executive of ArtMajeur, and Claire Halconruy, chief executive of Artsper, will lead the new group.
What Artsper built
Hugo Mulliez and François-Xavier Trancart founded Artsper in 2013. The site sells paintings, sculptures, photographs, prints and other works through partnerships with galleries that the Artsper team selects, and takes a commission on each sale. In 2015 the commission was 15%, and galleries also paid between €39 and €99 a month for access to the site and to tools such as stock management and email marketing.
The model took time to prove. In 2015 Trancart told Journal du Net that the founders had wanted to show that art could be sold online, pointing to sales of more than €25,000 made directly on the site, including a Banksy work for €40,000. At that point the company had 11 staff and about 400 partner galleries.
The company kept adding services for its galleries. Trancart said in 2015 that Artsper was working on hosting galleries' own websites, putting works and exhibitions online and multi-currency payments, and was refining its recommendation algorithms, which he said was not straightforward in the art world.
Today Artsper works with about 1,200 partner galleries. Mulliez said the idea had always been simple: to let everyone discover and buy contemporary art easily and with confidence.
“permettre à chacun de découvrir et d'acheter de l'art contemporain simplement et en toute confiance”
The founders and the funding
Artsper raised €305,000 (about $350,000) from business angels in 2014. In 2015 it closed a €1.2 million (about $1.4 million) round with its existing backers, new angels and the fund Entrepreneur Factory, money it planned to spend on marketing and on its technical team.
In February 2017 it raised €2 million (about $2.3 million) from Frédéric Jousset, co-founder of the outsourcing group Webhelp and owner of Beaux Arts magazine. Tech.eu reported at the time that Artsper planned to double its staff from 27 to 50 and expand into the UK, Germany and Italy, after sales grew 300% in 2016.
None of the coverage of the October deal said whether Artsper had raised money since then or how much its investors received.
Why YourArt is buying
YourArt wants to become a leading player in online art and claims the top position in Europe. Lévy said combining Artsper's premium approach with ArtMajeur's focus on making art accessible was the logic of the deal.
ArtMajeur brings a large catalogue, a presence in 80 countries, a technology platform and AI tools that will gradually be built into Artsper. It also sells a premium tier with extra features and a lower commission.
Together the group says it has about 95,000 artists, 1,800 galleries and 2 million visits a month. FrenchWeb pointed out that these are figures supplied by the companies and say nothing about sales volumes. It also reported that YourArt carried out a capital increase in September, largely taken up by the Lévy family, without giving the amount.
What happens to galleries and buyers
For the galleries that sell through Artsper and the buyers who use it, little is meant to change on the surface. The two marketplaces keep separate brands and customer portfolios, while ArtMajeur's AI tools and parts of its technology are brought into Artsper over time.
The deal turns YourArt into a two-brand group, with Artsper on the premium, gallery-led side and ArtMajeur on the side of wider access. It also marks an exit for a company that, by its founders' account in 2015, began with 11 employees and 400 galleries and has since tripled its gallery network.
