Paddle8

Paddle8 is an online auction house based in New York City selling fine art including Post-War and Contemporary art, prints & multiples, photography, street art and collectibles, founded in 2011 by Alexander Gilkes, Aditya Julka, and Osman Khan. Paddle8's sales focus on pieces priced between $1,000 and $100,000, all vetted by specialists for authenticity. Paddle8 has offices in New York, Los Angeles, London and Hong Kong. In 2016, Paddle8 merged with the Berlin online auction house Auctionata. In February 2017, Auctionata declared insolvency and Paddle8 became an independent company once again.

Paddle8 was founded in May 2011 by Alexander Gilkes (a former LVMH executive and the chief auctioneer at Phillips auction house), Aditya Julka (an entrepreneur and Harvard Business School Baker Scholar), and Osman Khan (a banker with experience at Goldman Sachs and Perella Weinberg Partners and a Harvard Business School MBA).

Initially created as a broad platform for presenting exhibitions of contemporary art online, Paddle8 refined its business model to focus solely on auctions. Paddle8 connects buyers and sellers of fine art, collectibles, design, jewelry, and watches through an online auction platform and an iPhone app. In 2014, Paddle8 sold more than $35.8 million worth of art, a 146% gain over the previous year.

Since its founding, Paddle8 has also partnered with over 300 non-profit organizations worldwide, from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Guggenheim, to present their benefit auctions online, dramatically expanding their audience of supporters by tapping into Paddle8's community of 500,000 collectors. By January 2015, Paddle8 had presented more than 500 benefit auctions.

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