Russian Fund Bright Capital invests $2.5M in German auction house

German trading site Auctionata received $2.5M from Russian venture fund Bright Capital in exchange for a minority stake, the amount of which was not disclosed.

According to Bright Capital’s partner Vadim Tarasov, Auctionata project includes 250 professionals working also with Sotheby's and Christie's. These people provide authentication of antiques and the assessment of their value: but even this does not eliminate high risks associated with the confirmation of the authenticity of things. The project was founded in 2011 by Alexander Zacke and Georg Untersalmberger. The auction house sells works of art and antiques through the live auction on the Internet.

Auctionata values your first five things for free, and the customer will have to pay from €50 for more things. It also charges a fee for some services (storage, transportation, etc.). Auctionata managed to attract $20M, its shareholders are European venture capital funds - e.ventures, Holtzbrinck Ventures, Raffay Group.

Bright Capital says that the auction has currently processed 13K user requests to value art objects and antiques worth over €22,5M. There are more than 2,8K objects for sale, and this number will increase to 10K by the end of 2012.

Venture fund Bright Capital Digital (BCD) operates since 2011. The target size of the fund is $50M to be invested in the media, telecom and Internet projects.