The company is now profitable following the closure of its online magazine, which shared the company's name, but the report notes that with a lack of capital, Artnet might potentially fall behind other competitors in the online auction space, like Art.sy and Paddle 8.

The company's CEO, Jacob Pabst, said the analysis should be taken with a grain of salt, partially because Skate's founder Sergey Skaterskhov led a recent attempt at a hostile takeover this past summer, acting on behalf of the holding company Redline Capital Management SA.

"Everything that's going on is as expected and as planned," Mr. Pabst said, adding that recent downsizing has led to a good deal of severance, and all losses were within acceptable amounts. "We knew that at some point we would reach a low point with our cash and that's because we went through a very difficult year, with very extensive restructuring and cost-cutting, and when you cut costs it always hurts twice as much in the beginning."

Mr. Skaterskhov, for his part, said that Red Line soon plans to sell its six percent stake in Artnet and has no interest in decreasing the stock price, for that reason.