Australian influencer marketing platform Tribe is launching in the US after a $10.5 million capital raising led by Sydney-based private equity group Exto Partners.
The New York City office will be headed up by CEO Anthony Svirskis, based out of the One World Trade Center, with plans to grow the US team to eight people over the coming months.
Tribe, which allows brands to put out briefs on the self-serve platform for creative content by influencers, opened in Australia in 2015 by TV and radio host Jules Lund.
Speaking to AdNews, Lund says the decision to enter the US market came after it saw that 20% of the brands using its platform where coming from the US, and 25% of all creators downloading the Tribe app were based in the US.
“They were having an unoptimised experience because we weren't in the market yet,” Lund says.
“We moved quickly, feeling we were being pulled into the region and set up an office in NYC.
Despite feeling it already cracked the international market when it opened in the UK 18 months ago, Lund says he’s excited about entering the US.
Lund explained the US business will run exactly as the Australian and UK offices, except the budget will be “far bigger” and creativity from creators even more “advanced”.
“This does feel exciting because of the sheer scale, it’s 30 times the size of Australia and the opportunities that we’re already being exposed to is incredibly exciting,” Lund says.
“We already have an enormous amount of traction with global brands, the unique part of our business is that we’ve already worked with 44 of the top 100 global brands in other regions, such as the UK and Australia.”
"So it’s very easy for New York marketers to understand what we do, so it escalated the conversation incredibly quickly.”
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