What the business is
Convelio is a tech-led fine-art shipping company handling quotes, shipping, insurance, customs and tracking for art and antiques.
The bet
An instant quoting tool for competitively priced fine-art logistics wins the digitising art market's shipping, from auction houses to private collectors.
Starting capital
€9M Series A in 2020; $35M (€30M) Series B in March 2022 led by Forestay and Mundi Ventures with the European Investment Fund, Acton Capital and Global Founders Capital.
How it started
Founded in Paris in 2017 by Edouard Gouin and Clément Ouizille, Convelio attacked the logistics gap in a digitising art market: traditional providers took one to five days just to quote a high-value shipment. Its platform returned instant, competitively priced quotes and then handled shipping, insurance, customs and real-time tracking end to end.
What happened
In 2021 the company handled over 14,000 shipments with a cumulative value of $265 million across more than 80 countries; revenues multiplied 2.5x and the customer base doubled to almost 3,000, including art market giants Christie's, Sotheby's and Phillips. In March 2022 it closed a $35M Series B led by Forestay and Mundi Ventures — which the company called one of the largest investments ever made into an art logistics business — with the European Investment Fund and existing investors Acton Capital and Global Founders Capital participating.
What has to be true
Auction houses and galleries had moved online, but their shippers still needed days to price a consignment — Convelio's entire wedge was the instant quote.
The numbers backed the bet: revenue up 2.5x, customers doubled to nearly 3,000, and Christie's, Sotheby's and Phillips on the client list.
It sized the whole chain, not just freight: the $1.6 trillion high-value, non-palletised market is almost 20% of global logistics.
Investors wrote one of the largest art-logistics cheques ever on that thesis, with US headcount set to double.
What can be applied
When a market digitises its storefront but not its back office, whoever quotes instantly owns the plumbing — quoting speed is a logistics moat.
Aftermath
As of March 2022, Convelio planned to spend the round on its logistics technology, customer service offering and sustainability strategy, doubling its US workforce — its largest market — and driving ESG projects to reduce shipping's impact. Its 2021 base: 14,000+ shipments, $265 million in cumulative value, almost 3,000 customers in over 80 countries.
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