Wowzi, a Kenyan startup has raised $2million (Sh224million) to scale its influencer marketing platform across Africa.
It had perviously raised $1.2million (Sh134.4million) in an unannounced pre-seed funding bringing the total amount raised to date to $3.2million (Sh358.4million).
“Now that Wowzi has created the technology platform to efficiently distribute and manage job offers to thousands of youth at a time, brands have an opportunity to engage directly with youth and offer meaningful gig work,” said Wowzi co-founder and CEO Brian Mogeni.
Its online marketplace opens up linkages for everyday social media user to work with big brands to earn money by spreading brand messages.
It plans to use the new funding to scale partnerships with local, regional and multinational companies that deal in Fast Moving Consumer Good, telcos, banks, creative agencies and development institutions to create digital jobs for youths in Africa.
The self-serve online platform allows brands of any size or industry to create and manage massive, distributed messaging campaigns utilising thousands of real, everyday customers and fans who get paid to offer authentic endorsements online for the products they already love.
Brands like Netflix, Safaricom, Diageo, Coca Cola, P&G and Absa Bank are now designing campaigns involving 5,000 or more people at a time.
Through scalable marketing automation, brands can run massive hyper-targeted campaigns that achieve higher Returns of Investment and consistently deliver better sales leads while increasing conversions.
Since it began operating two years ago, it has brought on board 70,000 influencers across Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania primarily through word of mouth.
“Our mission is to connect capacity to opportunity and that’s precisely what the platform does for emerging creators, said Wowzi co-founder Mike Otieno.
He said they have set an ambitious goal of creating 1 million jobs for African youth and this year they have delivered nearly 200,000 jobs through paid gigs.
"Wowzi it is not just about how many followers you have but rather about the power that an individual has within a unique community," said Otieno.
He said a banking CEO or a lawyer or a doctor might have a limited social following but wield outside influence within their community.