Why this UK family office invests in spaces for emerging artists
Art, including filmmaking, publishing and painting, makes up about 10 per cent of Adeline Arts & Science’s portfolio (Zan Wimberley)
Adeline Arts & Science started out as an investment vehicle that allocated sporadically to the health and tech industries. Now it is structured as a family office, investing with a five to 10 year time horizon across four diverse asset classes. The most liquid is hedge fund strategies such as trading, commodities and macro.
Its founder, Des Tan, is the former CTO at a data and machine learning start-up and his main interest is in investing in overlooked and underserved human needs.
Adeline also allocates to venture capital through early-stage tech start-ups and invests in commercial real estate in London, as well as art and creative projects.
The family office invests in emerging artists in the filmmaking, publishing and painting industries.
Art makes up about 10 per cent of Adeline’s portfolio. The family office makes a return on its investments by creating spaces where emerging artists can work and display their art, and also by investing in films.
Investment manager Jaysri Thangam tells AOX that art has tended to perform much better than other asset classes, particularly since the Covid pandemic.
Thangam said: “Art as an asset class, we think, is not correlated within the tech cycles at all.”
She said: “Our focus is direct investment in pre-seed and seed [tech start-ups]. That's the bread and butter. But let's say there's an emerging fund manager that understands seed to series A transition and they do that very, very well. Or let's say they understand the eastern European market very well. That sort of differentiated axis is interesting for us.”
Recently Adeline made an investment in an emerging solo GP called Openseed, which offers investors access to regions including Africa and Europe.
Adeline invests primarily in London, although it is also targeting countries in western Europe such as Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The family office will also be trying to expand its network into the Nordics in the coming years.
Thangam notes that while the US is “a very exciting market”, as a London-based investor, Adeline would need clarity on how their capital effectively moves the needle for a US start-up before making an allocation.