Portuguese startup SocialTalk has raised €770k to scale its martech solution that is helping companies harness the power of influencer marketing. The Lisbon-based team is now planning its global expansion.
Whilst the job title of influencer or the concept of influencer marketing might not have existed a decade ago, and even then, it’s only been taken seriously in the past couple of years – it’s now an incredibly powerful business area. Companies of all sizes are relying on influencers and the social proof they provide to sell and build brand identity and reputation.
Aiming to capitalize in this market – and help companies leverage the power of influence – Portuguese startup SocialTalk has just secured €770k in fresh funding led by Insight Venture.
Using AI to bring influencer marketing to all
Founded in 2021, SocialTalk wants to democratize the influencer market, bringing companies across the world of all sizes the chance to leverage this powerful marketing assrt. The company’s platform enables companies to quickly find influencers, manage their relationship and monitor their performance, all from one central platform.
It’s fully automated and available at a competitive monthly subscription fee.
Founders Francisco Ascensão (CEO) and Tiago Oliveira (CTO) created SocialTalk, building on their own experiences in the influencer world. They recognized that influencer marketing is here to stay. The power of recommendation and social proof is proving unequivocal and among the factors that most influence the decision to buy a product or trust a service.
Whilst influencer marketing is growing – it’s remained somewhat of a challenge to access and to manage. Working with influencers without the right tech stack has proven to be a consuming and complex task. SocialTalk claims to be able to save about 80% of the time and resources that would otherwise be allocated to influencer marketing. It’s also able to provide more information and metrics, helping teams analyze decisions and strategies.
“When we talk about democratization, we mean it. Typically, this is an area whose bill is still quite high for brands. We are following the same path that other areas of digital marketing have already followed. Nowadays, any brand has a CRM to manage customers, software to manage email marketing, social media, SEO, and advertising management, among many other areas. And hundreds or thousands of euros are no longer paid a month as was the case a few years ago. SocialTalk came to disrupt this paradigm. Now any company can have access to all the features from €31.00 per month, without false upgrades and usage limits.”
SocialTalk uses AI to match profiles with brands – making the process much more streamlined and efficient. According to the team, this addresses the greatest challenge of influencer marketing.
“This is the real challenge of Influencer Marketing. We want companies to stop looking for Influencers. We are developing a recommendation engine that suggests to brands which Influencers they should work with and whose followers fit with the brand’s target audience. But it goes much further than that. We are using Machine Learning to analyze millions of posts daily and help determine the actual performance of each influencer, how much a brand should pay according to the objectives proposed to each Influencer and to automate much of the relationship management process.”
The wider aim is to make influencer marketing transition to a sustainable process. The Lisbon-based startup also wants to rethink influencer culture – moving away from any toxic connections and using influencers to better communicate and educate society on sustainability matters.
This new funding will be used to grow the SocialTalk team in the tech, marketing and sales departments. It’ll also help internationalize its activity with expansion into new markets lined up – including across Europe, LATAM and the US.
Mónica Cameira de Mendonça, CEO of Insight Venture: “This is a disruptive project, in an area that needs innovation and a lot of process dematerialization. We are supporting two founders with enormous experience and a proven model”.
