In 2021, Swiss digital bank Sygnum and art investment firm Artemundi made history by tokenizing Fillette au béret (1964) by Pablo Picasso. The CHF 4 million painting was divided into 4.000 digital shares, giving private investors the chance to co-own museum-grade art from CHF 5.000 upward (€ 5.345 currently).

The work was securely stored in a bank vault, with no public display. The strategy was tailored to wealth preservation and executed under a fully regulated Swiss framework. Two years later, in 2023, the painting was sold, delivering a return of 20 percent in just 20 months. It was an early proof that fractional ownership of iconic art could work.

Around the same time, Rubey was preparing a different kind of proof-of-concept. Together with the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA), we tokenized Carnaval de Binche by James Ensor. Instead of focusing solely on wealth management, we chose to do it in partnership with a public museum, and for a public audience.

This is what sets Rubey apart. Our model starts not from the question of how art can generate financial return, but from the belief that iconic cultural assets carry societal value far beyond price. We integrate their artistic, historical and symbolic value into a hybrid structure. The result is a model where all layers of value creation reinforce each other. Rubey investors do not simply own a fraction of an artwork. They co-own a piece of cultural infrastructure that remains visible and activated, and their commitment helps strengthen the museums that care for it.

Serving Museums Through Shared Ownership

In 2025, Rubey is raising capital for three new investment fund projects, branded under one name as The Fourth Pillar of Wealth. Each of them is developed in direct response to a strategic ambition from a museum or cultural institution.

Autoworld Icons supports Autoworld Brussels in realising a new vision, known as Autoworld 2.0. While the government works with the museum on much-needed infrastructure improvements and the Autoworld team invests in a complete redesign of the scenography, Rubey focuses on a third and essential part of the plan. Through our fund, Autoworld can expand its permanent collection with iconic collectible cars that belong in the international story of mobility.

KMSKA Feminine is a co-initiative with the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, responding to a pressing curatorial question. How can a museum act on the urgent need to diversify its collection when there is no available budget for acquisitions? Through Rubey, a curated selection of female artists is being brought into focus and into the museum. Investors support a structural correction, while co-owning artworks that are institutionally supported and publicly celebrated.

Echoes for the Future follows a different path, both in content and in structure. For this fund, we deliberately chose not to start with a museum, because existing institutional frameworks can be limiting when dealing with digital-native works. The goal of the fund is to explore new ways of activating and circulating digitally created physical art. These works may well enter museums at a later stage, but perhaps across ten institutions at once, or in formats not yet formalised today. This open approach makes the fund a platform for experimentation, without losing the long-term vision of public visibility and curatorial integration.

Today, Rubey’s capital raise for these three funds is underway. We are currently at twenty percent of our year-end 2025 target, with a growing number of investors expressing interest across Europe.

Interested in joining?

We welcome inquiries from private investors, family offices and art patrons who believe in the value of shared cultural stewardship. Reply to this email or visit rubey.be to learn more about fund availability and upcoming events.

Enjoy the summer

Whether you are travelling, collecting or simply taking in the view, we wish you a restful and inspiring summer season. And if you would like to co-own a piece of cultural history, we would be delighted to speak with you.

All the best, Maarten Van Doorslaer, CEO Rubey