The success story of India’s prominent online art venture

Almost a decade after having formed his online venture, art entrepreneur Dinesh Vazirani is happy that things have gone the way he had visualized. But it has been a tough journey since he and his wife Minal first embarked upon a bouquet of start-ups dealing in; holistic and alternative medicines (Saffron Soul); design & fashion (Saffron Style), and visual arts (Saffron Art). The art venture bloomed after a successful auction in 2005.

India's first and most successful online art auction house finally made its mark, having arrived survived all the bubble burst and apprehensions about the business model itself. Narrating the turn of events Dinesh Vazirani mentions in The Economic Times interview (India’s art mart mature enough; Manoj Nair): "The aim was to channelize exotic India for the global market. We were looking to tap a market comfortable with online transactions. We wanted to create access points for items normally difficult to find The Indian market in those days was at the mercy of time consuming dial-up connections.”

Thankfully, the venture was supported by venture capitalist Chrys Capital. Gradually, Planet Saffron crystallized into Saffronart simply because of the founder’s background in art. So they decided to focus on a single entity. It wasn’t an arbitrary call. Both of them had studied art and shared a deep interest in the domain. However, the two had little access to the core essentials like relationships with known galleries, and had to grapple with practical hurdles while putting together their collections. Initially, Saffronart failed to source enough works.

In these difficult times, the VC stood by them, prompted them on to go for calculated risks, and create a consolidated venture - a hub stop-shop for modern & contemporary Indian art. The underlying idea was to provide access to good quality art and make the price points more transparent. The rest is history, as they say. Their success story was mapped in a case study courtesy the Harvard Business Review in 2007. And there’s a long way to go yet…