Craig Follett, co-founder and CEO of Peggy, shares the vision behind this innovative art marketplace designed to create a new, inclusive economy where everyone, from first-time collectors to established artists, can participate safely and confidently. Conceived by Follett and Adam Meghji in 2020 and launched as a mobile app in 2023, Peggy directly addresses two fundamental questions that were once surprisingly difficult to answer: where to buy art today and what art is right to collect.
Through patented authentication and innovative Digital Fingerprint technology, Peggy ensures verifiable provenance and automatic artist royalties on every resale, transforming the traditionally closed, intimidating art market into an accessible, liquid ecosystem.
Peggy becomes a trusted tool where artists and institutions can thrive together within a transparent, portable market, everything can be easily made through our phone. It fosters close relationships by directly presenting creators, their stories, and the meanings behind their work, while making buyers feel that purchasing art is just the beginning of a journey - always adaptable over time - not the end of their financial commitment.
In this interview for WeDirectory, Craig Follett reveals the platform's origin story, its deliberate focus on physical art (starting with painting), and the role Peggy plays in empowering younger generations to enter collecting while giving artists long-term control over their work's value.
Peggy Team: Adam Meghji, Bronwyn Hunter, Craig Follett. Image Courtesy Peggy.
What was the origin story behind Peggy? What was the moment or insight that inspired you to build it?
After I sold my first company, Universe, to Ticketmaster, I bought my first house and immediately wanted to fill the walls with original art. Sounds simple enough. But the question of where to buy and what to collect turned out to be surprisingly difficult to answer, even for someone who'd spent years in tech and live entertainment.
I started visiting art fairs, talking to gallerists, and pretty quickly noticed two structural problems in the market. First, high-net-worth collectors had access to a liquid secondary market through auction houses. They could buy a blue-chip piece and resell it whenever they wanted. Everyday collectors had no equivalent. You bought a painting and you were essentially stuck with it. Second, we kept seeing artists whose work was appreciating dramatically on the secondary market. A piece sold for $10,000, then flipped at auction for hundreds of thousands, and the artist saw none of that upside.
The insight that connected these two problems was authentication. Imagine a world where you could reliably verify a physical artwork using just your smartphone, where AI reads the unique surface characteristics of a painting and creates an unbreakable chain of custody. That would give everyday collectors the same flexibility that ultra-high-net-worth buyers have always had: the ability to buy with confidence and resell when life changes. If you look at adjacent markets, that dynamic already exists. Sneakers have StockX and GOAT. Watches have Chrono24. Fashion has The RealReal and Depop. These are all categories where authentication (albeit without Peggy's patented AI authentication) unlocked a healthy, liquid secondary market that benefits both buyers and creators. We saw no reason emerging and mid-career art shouldn't work the same way. And because we control that chain of custody end to end (with patented intellectual property), we can also ensure artists participate in the upside when their work appreciates. That's the core of what we built.
Image Courtesy Peggy
Where does the name Peggy come from? Was Peggy Guggenheim a direct inspiration - and if so, what about her legacy resonated with your vision?
When we were building the brand, we wanted a name that felt warm and approachable. Like a trusted friend who takes your hand and helps you navigate the art market without judgment. Traditional art spaces can feel intimidating: stark white walls, hushed galleries, "inquire for price" on everything. We didn't want a cold tech moniker. We wanted something human.
The name also ties neatly into the product itself. Users curate their favourite works on "Pegboards," and they can listen to artist interviews through our built-in "Pegcasts." There's a natural linguistic thread running through the whole experience.
And on a personal note, my beloved aunt's nickname growing up was Peggy, so it carries some family resonance too.
Peggy is said to be the only platform that builds artist royalties into resales. Can you tell us more about how that works in practice? How frequently do collectors actually resell through Peggy, and is there genuine demand for it? What tend to be the most common reasons people decide to resell art?
It all starts with our patented Digital Fingerprint technology. When an artwork is listed, the artist uses their smartphone camera to scan the physical piece. Our AI captures the microscopic surface details (the depth of brushstrokes, the texture of the canvas) and creates what is essentially an unbreakable digital chain of custody. When a collector later resells that piece on our secondary market, the new buyer scans it on arrival to confirm it's the exact same work. Because we have end-to-end visibility across that transaction, our system automatically routes a 10% royalty: 5% to the original artist and 5% to the original gallery.
Image Courtesy Peggy
People resell art for practical, everyday reasons: they move to a smaller apartment, their taste evolves, they run out of wall space, or they want to free up capital to support a different emerging artist. These are perfectly normal life events. And what we've found is that knowing this option exists actually makes people more willing to collect in the first place. The ability to resell removes the financial anxiety of that initial purchase. You're not locked in forever. That liquidity changes the entire psychology of buying art.
Peggy offers a range of technology features for artists and collectors. Which ones do you feel make the biggest difference in people's day-to-day experience? Do you have any tools to help artists with pricing - since setting the right price is something so many artists genuinely struggle with?
The feature I'd highlight isn't really about technology. It's about connection. Pegcasts are short-form audio interviews embedded in the app where you hear directly from the artist about the meaning behind their work, their process, their story. Discovering art on a screen can feel flat. But the moment you hear an artist talk about why they made something, there's an emotional shift. It stops being a product and starts being a relationship. That changes how people collect.
For collectors specifically, our "Make an Offer" feature is significant. The art world has historically hidden prices behind "inquire" buttons, which benefits insiders and alienates everyone else. Peggy maintains transparent pricing histories and a public registry of ownership. Collectors can look at comparable sales and current offers, and the ability to bid means genuine market value emerges organically rather than being dictated from the top down. That transparency gives collectors real information to make confident decisions.
On the artist and gallery side, our Send Invoice tool solves a quiet but important problem. If a gallery closes a sale offline, at an art fair or over dinner, they can use Peggy to process that transaction. We waive our standard fee entirely, charging only the 2.9% credit card processing cost, and the artwork gets digitally fingerprinted and registered. For the collector, that means the piece they just bought is now authenticated and can be resold on Peggy in the future. For the artist, it means they're enrolled for their 5% royalty if that piece ever changes hands. Everyone benefits from more art entering the authenticated ecosystem.
Image Courtesy Peggy
Is it possible to resell on Peggy artwork that was originally purchased elsewhere - not through the platform?
Yes, with an essential step to protect the integrity of the ecosystem. The artwork must first be authenticated and registered on Peggy. Think of Peggy as a digital catalogue raisonné for our vetted artists. If an artist or gallery sells a piece privately, they can use our tools to scan the physical work, create its Digital Fingerprint, and associate it with the buyer. Once that provenance (the verified history of who owned the work and when) is established in our system, the collector gains the full flexibility of Peggy's secondary market. They can list and resell that artwork whenever they choose, with the confidence that it's been authenticated and that the transaction is secure.
What are your priorities for improving Peggy going forward? How closely do you engage with your users, and what are the most common things they're asking for?
We engage with our community constantly. It's one of the advantages of being a relatively small, focused team that genuinely cares about this space.
The most consistent thing we hear from collectors is that they want more. More artists, more inventory, more content, more Pegcasts, more ways to learn about the artists they're following. That's a healthy signal. It tells us the core experience is working and people want to go deeper.
On the community side, we're seeing growing demand for social features: collectors wanting to share their collections, compare notes, discover new work through each other. That kind of peer-driven discovery is something we think about a lot. When a collector you respect adds a new piece to their Pegboard, that signal carries weight. Building on that social fabric is central to what comes next.
What is the single most valuable piece of advice you would give to artists today?
Take ownership of your provenance and your secondary market from day one. Don't wait. Provenance is the documented chain of ownership and authenticity for an artwork, and historically, artists have had almost no control over it once a piece leaves their studio.
For a long time, artists have been told to focus on the primary sale and let everything downstream take care of itself, which usually just means auction houses and flippers capture the upside. That's changing, and artists have more tools available to them now than at any point in history.
Concretely: document your catalogue raisonné digitally, authenticate your sales, and partner with platforms that guarantee you royalties. Treat your career as a long-term body of work, not a series of one-off transactions. You are the one building the value of your market, and you deserve to share in that value as it grows.
Image Courtesy Peggy
How do you see Peggy's role in helping younger generations take their first steps into art collecting?
Younger collectors are culturally engaged and financially literate, but they expect asset classes to be transparent, digital-first, and liquid. They manage investments from their phones. The traditional art market is the opposite of all of that: opaque, analog, and illiquid. There's a fundamental mismatch.
What Peggy does is translate fine art into the kind of experience younger people already trust. Social curation, audio storytelling, transparent pricing, a clean mobile interface. But the thing that really unlocks participation is the secondary market. Spending $1,000 on a painting is a meaningful commitment for most people, and it's a much harder decision if you believe you're stuck with it forever. The moment a collector knows they can resell that piece securely if their life circumstances change, the calculus shifts. The intimidation drops. They take the leap, they support a living artist, and they start building a collection.
We want people to feel that buying art is the beginning of a journey, not a financial commitment they can't undo. That shift in mindset is what opens the door.
