NEW YORK, NY.- LiveAuctioneers, the world’s leading online platform for live auctions of collectibles, antiques, and fine art, announced today that it has obtained a $47.6M round of funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners. This investment is one of the largest financing events for a technology-enabled auction marketplace and will enable the company to make deep investments in talent, product innovation, marketing, international expansion and acquisitions. In conjunction with the investment, Bessemer partner Brian Feinstein will be joining LiveAuctioneers’ board of directors.
 
“After a decade of building LiveAuctioneers without any outside investment, we’re excited to partner with Bessemer and leverage the firm’s expertise, capital, access to talent, and experience building market-defining Internet businesses to drive our next decade of growth,” said co-founder and Chairman, Julian Ellison. “We were the first in our industry to bring timed auctions to market. We were the first to bring both desktop and mobile-enabled bidding tools to the industry. And, we’re thrilled to have even more resources available to continue to be the innovation trailblazer in the online live auction industry.”

The capital raise follows a record year for LiveAuctioneers during which the company helped to facilitate almost $3 billion worth of gross merchandise sales by connecting nearly one million collectors and dealers from around the globe with over 2,500 auction houses and sellers of one-of-a-kind items. 
 
“The founding team has done a tremendous job building LiveAuctioneers into the top platform in the industry. We’re delighted to provide the company with additional resources to execute on its goals of enhancing the user experience for our network of bidders and investing deeply in tools to assist our auction house partners,” said Feinstein.