{"id":43398,"date":"2023-10-20T15:28:17","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:28:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/melbourne-startup-tribe-closes-oversubscribed-5-35-million-series-a-round-to-fund-an-international-expansion-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:28:17","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:28:17","slug":"melbourne-startup-tribe-closes-oversubscribed-5-35-million-series-a-round-to-fund-an-international-expansion-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/melbourne-startup-tribe-closes-oversubscribed-5-35-million-series-a-round-to-fund-an-international-expansion-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Melbourne startup Tribe closes oversubscribed $5.35 million Series A round to fund an international expansion – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tribe<\/div>\n

Influencer marketing startup Tribe has closed an over-subscribed $5 million Series A round as it sets its sights on a rapid international expansion.<\/p>\n

The Melbourne-based startup announced plans to raise the funding in April<\/a> and eventually closed the round at $5.35 million, bringing the total funding in the tech company to $8 million.<\/p>\n

Tribe offers a two-sided online marketplace connecting brands with \u201ccitizen influencers\u201d, social media users with between 5000 and 100,000 followers.<\/p>\n

Founded by TV and radio host Jules Lund<\/a>, brands can work with these influencers through the platform to create content to share with their followers.<\/p>\n

A necessary evil<\/h3>\n

The funding round in Tribe was led by Exto Partners, which has also backed Airtasker<\/a>, another two-sided marketplace platform.<\/p>\n

Tribe CEO Anthony Svirski says that while the fundraising process is never pleasant, it has all paid off now.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think anyone involved in capital raising ever really enjoys the process \u2013 it\u2019s time-consuming and takes the focus away from the business,\u201d Svirski tells StartupSmart<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it ensures you have robustness in the business and means you need to have a very strong core product and future strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

While not revealing the valuation that this round placed on Tribe, the company announced it was seeking a pre-money valuation of $15 million when the round opened in April.<\/p>\n

Initially seeking $5 million, the round was slightly oversubscribed, but the CEO says he was still very careful about picking which investors to partner with.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were still very considerate about taking investors who we feel can help us in some way,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are people we want to involve in our business. It\u2019s pleasing to be over-subscribed and have that level of confidence from them in where we\u2019ve come and where we plan to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going global<\/h3>\n

The cash injection will be used to fund a rapid international expansion into two to three markets at first, as well as for further product development, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny early-stage business needs to balance the local market position with ensuring the product is mature enough to move into international markets, and knowing when to press that button,\u201d Svirski says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll continue to invest in the product to bring it up to a higher level and we\u2019ll be spending a bit of money on market entry.\u201d<\/p>\n

To identify the best markets to expand to, Tribe completed a quantitative study on 53 markets on key metrics including social media ad spend and Instagram penetration.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat process is very strategic, it\u2019s not about spreading as far and wide as possible,\u201d Svirski says.<\/p>\n

Tribe launched nearly a year ago, and Svirski says the platform has enjoyed 20% month-on-month growth in the last six months for all key metrics, including revenue.<\/p>\n

The startup has now partnered with over 500 brands on over 9000 campaigns, and has 4500 influencers on the other side.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spent most of my time on the capital raising so it was really pleasing that the business continued to grow in the background,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately what we\u2019ve built is a tech product which can benefit from word-of-mouth and a network effect, and we\u2019re starting to see that.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven when we stop all marketing that growth still continues \u2013 it\u2019s a self-serve tech platform.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says that this latest funding round will give Tribe enough runway to facilitate rapid growth and expansion in the lead up to a large Series B round in 12-18 months\u2019 time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nice to have the ability to do that and to back ourselves to carry out our ideas,\u201d Svirski says.<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em> Facebook,<\/em> Twitter, LinkedIn.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Influencer marketing startup Tribe has closed an over-subscribed $5 million Series A round as it sets its sights on a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,13,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43398"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}