In 2008, REMIX Co-founders Peter Tullin and Simon Cronshaw quit their day jobs in arts sponsorship to become hands-on creative entrepreneurs. Together they spotted the opportunity to capitalise upon the rise of e-commerce and a growing consumer demand for unique, artist-designed gifts and homeware. They launched CultureLabel.com, an online marketplace that brought together 800 of the world’s best museum stores, galleries, creative boutiques and artists. It was one of the first websites to sell art online from non-profit institutions.
CultureLabel partnered with hundreds of iconic creative and cultural brands. From Tate, Saatchi Gallery, Blur, V&A, New Museum, Southbank Centre, Tatty Devine, ICA, Design Museum, The Photographers’ Gallery, The Prodigy, Royal Opera House, Barbican, Andy Warhol Estate, National Theatre, Chateau Versaille and Royal Academy of Arts to artists such as Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and Sir Peter Blake, plus emerging art talent from the likes of the Royal College of Arts. High profile brands including Amnesty International and Bestival commissioned CultureLabel to produce exclusive product collaborations.
Reaching over 250,000 visits in peak months, and securing investment from Venture Capital firms and angel investors, the site provided a win/win for the arts sector: handing up to 90% of revenues back to partners, encouraging best practice e-commerce strategies, and introducing new high street audiences to the best of the cultural and creative sectors.
Crucially, CultureLabel lived and breathed many of the principles we now explore at REMIX: finding innovative mechanisms for combining cultural assets and consumer trends; applying models from other industries to the non-profit creative sector; welcoming new audiences by rethinking the experience or interaction from the ground up; developing truly sustainable revenue streams; using latest technology and business model innovation to inspire change.
The success of CultureLabel resulted in a major round of Venture Capital investment led by EC1. It was sold by the founders in 2014.
“An aggregator for the arts – one to watch” – Wired
“An emporium of desirables” – Vogue
“CultureLabel does the visiting, the curating and the editing for us… A host of possible presents, each one with some real connection to the institution it comes from.” – Financial Times
