Adam Meghji turned his love of computers into an entrepreneurship: in college, he helped musicians sell MP3s to fans abroad via PayPal before iTunes dominated the market, and he soon started his own. Ticketing platform for online events. After selling that company to Ticketmaster in 2015, he changed course and devoted himself to art. Now, Meghji focuses on authenticating and selling pieces of contemporary art. with its launch, Peggy.
I grew up in Waterloo, Ontario, a city known for its business and technical contributions. There must be something in the water, because that rubbed off on me. When I was seven years old, my dad brought home a big box with a computer in it. I remember the moment he placed it on the laundry room floor. Something ignited inside of me and I became a lifelong handyman. By the age of 11, he was building dial-up communities, online communities that predated the modern Internet where he could connect to other people’s computers using a phone line and modem, and do things like write notes, transfer files, and play games. games. I begged my dad to give me my own phone line so people could dial and get in touch with me. This is how hardcore nerds like me got online before the internet.
I always had tons of project ideas online and couldn’t help but try to implement them; I knew how, because I learned to program on my own. At an elementary school science fair, for example, I drew on my experience building online communities and built a web-based platform for medical professionals. Basically, I created a complete eHealth system where doctors could log in, upload and exchange patient information, and interact with their patients. The science fair judges hated it. “A doctor will never put patient records on a computer,” they said. I was chastised for even thinking this was possible. If he had taken better advice and turned it into a product, maybe he would be a billionaire.
A couple of years later, I moved my communities from dial-up to the web. I kept a passion for computers and coding throughout high school. In 2000, I went to the University of Guelph to study computer science, but aside from my formal education, I was always building things. I’m also a DJ, and all my best friends were (and still are) musicians and creatives. I noticed that none of them had music available online. So I built a music platform to promote my friends. I guided them into my platform and sold MP3s to kids in Europe using PayPal long before iTunes became a thing.
RELATED: How Canada’s crumbling health care system opened the door to for-profit virtual care
When I graduated, I started helping other Canadian companies like Metavera and Intellitactics as a lead developer, writing code and helping them develop products. During all that time, I knew that I wanted to start my own company. But I thought, “Who am I to tell a designer how to design, or a salesperson how to sell, before I get experience in different roles?” I looked for opportunities to be multidisciplinary, believing that one day I would be responsible for managing team members like them. I worked at a company called Unata, for which I co-built a prototype that would form the basis of the Grocery Gateway app, which Instacart later bought. I spent time developing car sharing technology and built leading competition for Zipcar.
Around 2011, I realized that I had enough experience and it was time to cross the chasm to become a founder. At the same time, I met Craig Follett on LinkedIn. He approached me looking for a technical co-founder or lead developer, and something about him struck me as sincere and intelligent. I was working on a food delivery idea, and Craig and I put our ideas together and dated by the founder, if you will. We spent six weeks getting to know each other and making sure we were on the right vibe. On the same day in 2011, we both quit our jobs and launched Universe, an event ticketing platform, and bought the universe.com domain.
“People had their own websites and wanted to sell tickets directly within their own sites and apps, instead of linking to another site.”
We realized that the world was moving towards mobile devices. People had their own websites and wanted to sell tickets directly within their own sites and apps, instead of linking to another site. With one line of code, we created technology that would allow people to sell tickets that way. We were growing aggressively, but we thought, “Why not jump on the shoulders of the industry giant?” And so Ticketmaster bought us in 2015.
I stayed on as VP of Technology at Ticketmaster and eventually became VP of Crypto Ticketing, which meant I was the “blockchain guy” and got to sit on the other side of the M&A table for the first time. time. From 2017 to 2019 when Ethereum smart contracts— basically contracts stored on a blockchain — became interesting, Live Nation chose me to oversee the R&D of blockchain solutions for event ticketing. This culminated in the creation of a patent for blockchain ticketing. But it wasn’t long before he was ready to start another company.
My business partner Craig and I had been thinking about the art market for a while. In fact, the first thing he did after we sold our start-up to Ticketmaster was review art basel In Switzerland. She loved it, but none of us loved how historically opaque and exclusive the art world was. Ordinary people do not have an easy way to participate, especially when it comes to investing and reselling. Obviously, those paths are well established for the ultra-rich. I did research on blockchain and online marketplaces, and I thought, “If I can use technology to sell tickets to events, why can’t I do the same with a painting?”
RELATED: How Wattpad Co-Founder Allen Lau Built a $750 Million Business
Auction houses are gatekeepers, as authentication keeps people out of the art world. Picasso is dead, for example, and there are a small number of experts who know of his catalog and can authenticate the work. But the average artwork authenticator is likely unfamiliar with the work of lesser-known artists, so those artworks aren’t as profitable as something like a Picasso, because they can’t be authenticated in the same way.
Our hypothesis was that if we create an AI that can authenticate work, we can create a thriving and accessible art market. And so, in 2020, Peggy was born. Using proprietary authentication technology, our platform unites collectors, artists, and gallery owners, focusing on museum-quality artworks that sell for between $500 and $25,000. Through us, artists can safely sell their work to collectors. And since the authentication of the artwork remains with Peggy, if a collector decides to sell it to someone else, they can authenticate directly on our platform.
“The average art authenticator is likely to be unfamiliar with the work of lesser-known artists”
Peggy is also in a unique position to enforce artist royalties. Right now, artists get paid for every painting they sell, but don’t see a dime in resales, even as the value of their work increases. In other words, artists typically don’t receive royalties like musicians. But because we have this long-term relationship with the artists and we manage the authentication, we’re able to pay five percent royalties on every repeat transaction, and we’re the only platform that can do that. In 10 years, I want to be able to look back and say that we processed a billion dollars in royalty payments from supporting artists that they would never have received otherwise.
By 2022, we had raised $10.8 million in financing angel and seed rounds. Given the economic climate, I think our fundraising success shows that art is a stable asset class and investment. This year, we launched to the public through the app store (both iOS and Android). For now, we are focusing on contemporary artists worldwide, specializing in paintings and original works on paper, without prints or photographs. My vision is that in the next five years, Peggy will become a household name, and the idea of investing in art from relevant, living artists who need her support will be second nature.