Artis raises $7.3M to run the brands of top residential design firms

AUSTIN — Artis, which markets itself as a brand partner for high-end residential design practices, has raised $7.3 million in seed funding led by LiveOak Ventures, with participation from mark vc and Capital Factory. The company also secured up to $3 million in revolving credit from Banc of California, bringing its total potential capital to $10.3 million.

Founded in 2022, Artis runs the social media, websites and AI-search presence of more than 60 architecture, interior-design and custom-home-building firms, including McAlpine, Kligerman AD and Schafer & Company. The company builds a model of each client's voice, standards and design decisions and applies it across channels, arguing that the intelligence compounds as the relationship deepens. With the new money it plans to expand from social media into full websites and generative-engine optimization and to grow its executive, sales and engineering teams. Co-founders Zach Rubin, Sahar Afrakhan and David Rubin also unveiled a new company brand identity alongside the raise.

Why it matters

Artis is a bet that AI's near-term value in creative industries is administrative, not artistic — taking marketing and coordination off the plates of designers so they can spend more time on the work itself. It is also a vote of confidence from LiveOak, an Austin firm that has backed 60 Texas technology companies, in a vertical-software niche that larger platforms have largely ignored.

They tell me only twenty percent of their day actually goes to the craft itself. We take the rest on, so they can return to the craft. The version of AI worth caring about here isn't the kind that replaces the judgment; it's the kind that serves it.— Zach Rubin, co-founder and CEO, Artis