Egypt's Flareinn provides a marketplace for MENA art

“We provide our artists with their own personalised accounts, which act as a shop for their pieces. They have the creative control over the pricing, with the help of our pricing guide featured on the website,” chief executive officer (CEO) Abdalla Amin told Disrupt Africa.

Flareinn aspires to be more than just a marketplace for art, however.

“We are aiming to act as an online art community that nurtures the presence and importance of art in the Middle East. We will achieve that by adding a blog to our website down the line, to help our artists interact and help each other,” Amin said.

“Our focus is also to support our artists through marketing for them as well as their art. Through our platform, we will help them get the recognition they deserve.”

These pieces and many more are on sale on our website starting today!! Hurry up & take your pick#Flareinn#art pic.twitter.com/ybm5vun8Fm

— Flareinn (@flareinn) July 2, 2018

The startup, which takes a commission of between 20 and 35% on any sales made through its platform, has had some notable landmarks, having taken part in the Injaz incubation programme, exhibiting at the RiseUp conference, and participating in the recent MINT Incubator demo day.

Amin has been an artist himself, but became frustrated with the lack of opportunities and turned to developing a tool that could help artists like himself profit from their work.

“We found art and artists to be missing out on the technological revolution. Platforms now are battling to serve the creative economy. Online platforms present today showcase and support creative talents, content creating has turned into a full-on career, and we believe artists are missing out on the leaps technological platforms can help them make towards a stable income,” he said.

The bootstrapped Flareinn is Amin’s solution to this problem, and since the platform’s launch it has already featured over 120 artists, with over 250 pieces showcased. Though operating in Egypt, it has wider ambitions.

“We believe our mission of spreading art and opportunities for artists is crucially needed across the MENA region and our plans will always focus on reaching this expansion,” Amin said.