Matchmade has raised $4.8 million in funding for its platform to match influencers such as YouTubers and Twitch streamers with brands and game companies that want to market their products.
The Helsinki-based company said $4.5 million of the amount was part of a Series A round that Korea Investment Partners led and will enable Matchmade to further expand into more countries as well as continue to develop new technologies.
Alongside the funding, Matchmade said it will also open an office in the U.S. The company also said its expanded platform now includes Twitch, in addition to YouTube. The new San Francisco office will be run by early Twitch employee Jordan “Soma” Tayer, who has joined the team and will serve as general manager for North America. Tayer regular streams on Twitch to more than 43,000 followers.
“The incredible 400 percent growth in campaign budgets by advertisers, is a testament to the growing importance of influencer marketing,” said Jiri Kupiainen, CEO of Matchmade, in a statement. “This funding round allows us to double down on the development of the Matchmade platform, and most importantly in growing our team. Adding Twitch to the Matchmade platform means that we are better able to serve our customers and influencers alike by offering a broader data-driven approach to sponsored content. Influencer marketing is still very new and we’re excited to be driving the development of one of the fastest growing areas of new media.”
The Matchmade platform analyses over 3 million channels and 300 million videos on YouTube as well as 12 million streams and 260,000 channels on Twitch to provide analytical data-based influencer matching for games and other products.
Matchmade lets advertisers search for and reach out to multiple influencers in one place. The platform shows real-time campaign data on its dashboard, which supports the majority of third-party data tracking companies such as Appsflyer, Kochava and Adjust. The platform has seen a 400 percent increase in campaign investment from advertisers in 2018 compared to 2017.
“Korea Investment Partners is investing in Matchmade as the company’s solution to one of the fastest growing areas of advertising is sophisticated, scalable and technically advanced,” said Sang-ho Park, partner at Korea Investment Partners, in a statement. “The founding team is very experienced and driven, and they’ve demonstrated great potential.”
Matchmade was founded in 2014 by Kupiainen and Leo Lännenmäki, chief technology officer. The company has 21 employees.