Chinese art trading website Hihey.com had received a series-B investment of about USD100 million from CITIC Securities and Shenzhen Capital Group after obtaining an equity investment from China Minsheng Banking Corporation.
Founded in 2011, Hihey.com is a comprehensive one-stop-shop for the promotion and sale of works of art. Every category of art object is available and a full range of transaction services is offered.
By enabling artists to display their wares through online channels, the company has provided career opportunities and support for tens of thousands of artists.
Hihey’s online art transaction platform helps newly wealthy Chinese discover leading new-generation artists. The firm’s VIP clients are all leaders across a wide range of industries, with entertainment barons such as Wang Changtian, Guo Jingming, Wang Zhongjun, Xu Xiaoping and Shen Lihui, as well as C-suite executives and managers at leading financial companies, including Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley, all steadfast fans of the website.
With the fast-growing Chinese economy, Hihey said it is creating a world where everyone and anyone can be an art collector.
The shareholder lineup has been proven to be the strongest among all companies that started up in 2014. China Minsheng Banking Corporation is one of the largest private banks in China. CITIC Securities, with assets of approximately USD44.2 billion, is the largest broker in Asia. Shenzhen Capital Group, on the other hand, is the largest Chinese state-controlled venture capital investment group.
Relying on the backgrounds and resources of its shareholders, the HIHEY team said it will provide basic services for artwork transactions and provide financial support for the art industry through the mobile Internet, an "offline to online" (O2O) ecosystem for the promotion and sale of works of art as well as the creation and management of art funds.
The new ecosystem creates an efficient, open and free art-sharing platform for artists, galleries, auction houses as well as purveyors and collectors from the traditional art market, and, at the same time, provides a new experience as for how artists and collectors interact with other.