Investors · Pre-seed
Recognise art from a photo, and turn it into a social network
Artema is a mobile app designed in France. You photograph an artwork, AI identifies it and tells its story, then the work joins the member’s personal collection and feeds a community stream. Version 1.0 is built; the launch will be international, in English and French.
The problem
At a museum, attention lasts less than a minute, and the memory barely longer
- A glance that is too short. Visitors spend 28.6 seconds on average in front of an artwork, including reading the label[3]. The label gives a title and a date, rarely a story, and often in a single language.
- Photos without context. More than one observed visitor in three takes a selfie with the artworks[3]. Those pictures end up in the camera roll, with no title, no artist, no place.
- Siloed tools. An audio guide covers a single museum. General social networks don’t know what they are showing: a painting is just one image among many.
The solution
One gesture to identify, understand and keep
Multimodal AI models can now recognise an artwork without a proprietary image database. Where existing solutions depend on the digitised collections of their partner venues, Artema works from day one, in any museum and in the visitor’s language.
Identify
Photo or import: AI recognises the artwork, its artist and its date. For lesser-known works, a reverse web search completes the identification.
Understand
Artwork, artist and museum pages. Practical information is read from the museum’s official website, and every text written by AI is labelled.
Search
A search engine for artworks, artists, museums and cities, with a page written by AI for any name.
Find
“Where can I see the Mona Lisa?”: Artema tells you which museum holds the work, and My museum keeps every artwork seen, with its location.
Travel
A travel companion: the map of museums around you, anywhere in the world, with their exhibitions and opening hours.
Share
The feed, follows and messages turn visits into conversations, and every member shows their own museum.
The community
Community, the engine of growth and retention
A museum app is only used on the day of the visit. A social network turns it into a regular habit.
- A reason to come back. The feed, follows, notifications and messages bring members back between visits.
- Content that creates itself. Every scan can become a post linked to an artwork, an artist and a place: the more members visit, the richer the feed.
- Network effects. Each new member brings their discoveries to the others; public profiles, shares and content creators spread the word about Artema beyond its members.
- A qualified audience. The artworks, movements and museums the community cares about, measured in an aggregated and anonymous way, give museums and advertisers a precise audience, without individual tracking.
- A safe community. Reporting, blocking and moderation within 24 hours: a prerequisite for growing on the app stores and with institutions.
The product today
Version 1.0 is built
- iPhone and Android app from a single codebase (Expo, React Native), Supabase back end.
- AI identification, reverse search for lesser-known works, high-resolution reproductions from Wikimedia Commons.
- Artwork, artist and museum pages; exhibitions, prices and opening hours read from official websites.
- Search engine (artworks, artists, museums, cities), “where to see an artwork” search, a page written by AI for any name.
- Worldwide museum directory built from Wikidata, map of nearby museums.
- Full social network: feed, likes, comments, reposts, follows, notifications, private messages.
- Moderation (reporting, blocking, handled within 24 hours), anti-abuse quotas, GDPR compliance by design.
- Documented design system and Figma mockups of every user journey.
The interface is in French today; the English version is the last step before launch. The first usage metrics (downloads, scans, retention) will be added to the investor pack in the weeks following launch.
The market
A global market, open from launch in English and French
Artema is for anyone who comes across art: regular museum-goers, cultural tourists, passers-by walking into a church or a gallery. English and French open up France, the United Kingdom, North America and international visitors who read either language from day one.
1.52 billion international tourists
in 2025, up 4%, more than half of them in Europe[1]. Major museums are must-see stops on their trips.
More than 200 million visits
to the world’s 100 most visited art museums in 2025, led by the Louvre with 9 million[2].
About 104,000 museums
worldwide, according to UNESCO[5]. AI identification needs no local partnership, and since pages are written by AI, they can be written in the member’s language: each new language mostly costs the translation of the interface.
France, the home market
72.7 million visits to France’s “Musées de France” in 2024[6] and 102 million international tourists in 2025, the world’s leading destination[7].
Business model
A hybrid model: subscription, advertising and partnerships
Free to download, then four revenue streams switched on as the audience grows: subscription from launch, affiliate revenue within the first months, advertising and the museum offer once the audience is established. Assumptions to be validated during the first year.
- Subscription
Artema Plus
For enthusiasts: scans beyond the free daily quota, in-depth pages, visit routes, offline access.
- Institutions
Museum offer
Verified official page, featured exhibitions, content from curatorial teams, aggregated and anonymous statistics on the most scanned artworks.
- Affiliate
Tickets, tours and prints
Booking tickets and guided tours from the museum page, posters and prints of public domain works from the artwork page, with a commission on each sale.
- Advertising
Native formats and sponsorship
Exhibitions, galleries, auction houses, art publishers and cultural tourism: ads built into the feed and pages, targeted by context (museum, city, movement, artist, language). A qualified, international audience that general social networks rarely offer.
Competition
Identification, knowledge, collection and community in one app
| Solution | Recognises an artwork | Tells its story | Personal collection | Community |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Artema | Anywhere | Yes | Yes, with location | Dedicated to art |
| Smartify | Works in its database | Yes | Yes | No |
| Google Lens | Anywhere | Web results | No | No |
| Audio guides | One museum | Yes | No | No |
| No | No | Posts | General |
How to read: a full dot means a complete feature, a half dot a partial feature, an empty circle a missing feature.
Smartify, backed by Metavallon VC and Pembroke VCT, reports more than 700 partner organisations[4]: the demand exists, and investors in the sector are following it.
Roadmap
An international launch, then new languages
Indicative timeline, adjusted to the amount raised.
October 2026
In progressVersion 1.0 and store release
App completed in French, submission to the App Store and Google Play, website in English and French.
Before launch
English version of the app
Translated interface, pages written by AI in the member’s language, legal pages in English.
Launch
[date]International opening
English and French from day one: first members, content creator programme, press relations in both languages.
2027
First revenue
Artema Plus trial, ticketing affiliates, first partner museums and advertisers, in France and English-speaking countries.
Next
New languages
Spanish, Italian and German, following the major cultural tourism destinations.
Team
A designer and entrepreneur as founder
Charles Peloye, founder
Product designer: 13 years of experience and more than 50 projects, for Doctolib, TotalEnergies, Châteauform’, beta.gouv.fr and the Centre Pompidou-Metz. Specialist in complex products and design systems, accessibility auditor (RGAA). Art director and illustrator of Avignon Online (2020), the virtual, non-profit festival created after the Avignon Festival was cancelled.
An entrepreneur, he has run his own companies, from a tech startup to a restaurant business, and co-founded La Seigneurie du Néman, the restoration of a 14th-century estate in the Loire Valley. He designed and built Artema end to end: user journeys, design system, product and compliance.
- Product design
- 13 years, more than 50 projects
- Culture
- Art director and illustrator of Avignon Online (2020)
- Entrepreneurship
- Has run his own companies; co-founder and chair of La Seigneurie du Néman, 2021 to 2022
- Accessibility
- RGAA auditor, accessibility lead at TotalEnergies
The round
Pre-seed round
- Amount sought
- [amount]
- Instrument
- [BSA AIR, equity…]
- Use of funds
- English version of the app and international launch, in English and French; acquisition of the first members; Artema Plus; first museum partnerships; hiring a mobile developer and a partnerships lead.
The full investor pack (deck, financial forecast, cap table) is sent on request.
Request the investor pack
Sources
- UN Tourism, World Tourism Barometer, January 2026: 1.52 billion international tourist arrivals in 2025, including 793 million in Europe, reported by Hospitality Net. hospitalitynet.org
- The Art Newspaper, 2025 art museum attendance survey (published March 2026): more than 200 million visits to the top 100, led by the Louvre with 9,046,000 visitors, reported by ECO and Artforum. eco.sapo.pt · artforum.com
- L. F. Smith, J. K. Smith and P. P. L. Tinio, “Time spent viewing art and reading labels”, Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 2017: 28.63 seconds on average, observed at the Art Institute of Chicago. doi.org/10.1037/aca0000049
- Tech.eu, “Museum app Smartify secures £1.5M funding”, 29 January 2025. tech.eu
- UNESCO, Museums around the world in the face of COVID-19, April 2021 (estimate of 104,000 museums), reported by The Art Newspaper, 13 April 2021. theartnewspaper.com
- French Ministry of Culture, Patrimostat 2026, reported by Localtis (Banque des Territoires), 17 September 2026 (in French). banquedesterritoires.fr
- Atout France, 2025 annual report: 102 million international tourists in 2025 (in French). atout-france.fr
This page presents the Artema project for information purposes only. It is neither a public offering of securities nor a solicitation to invest. Projections and timeline are indicative.