The folks at Paddle 8 and Auctionata are very excited to announce that the two platforms—one with strength in Europe and the other with a base in the UK and US—are merging. The announcement comes with a raft of slick publicity materials, including portraits of the founders and the management teams all sharing a satisfied moment. There’s also a video (click through the image above to view) extolling the merger with movie-trailer self-confidence.
ArtNews whose parent company (update: turns out the Paddle8 stake held by ArtNews’s parent company was not acquired with the site) owns shares in Paddle 8 puts the figures more precisely than the company press release:
The deal between the two online auctioneers creates a newly formed company that will lay claim to 793,000 registered users in 200 countries and more than $150 million in joint annual sales, making it, according to a news release announcing the deal, one of the top ten auction houses in the world outside of China.
Auctionata And Paddle8 Will Merge, Marking A Shift In The Online Art Market (ARTnews)
