One Impression, an Indian influencer advertising and marketing platform that does enterprise in markets together with Indonesia, Dubai, Europe and the U.S., has raised $10 million in a funding spherical led by the South Korean gaming firm Krafton.
The Gurugram-based startup is constructing an Amazon-like platform to assist manufacturers shortly discover related influencers for his or her advertising and marketing campaigns. It touts having greater than 7 million content material creators on the platform that manufacturers starting from FMCG to e-commerce can entry. These creators embrace the micro-ones growing content material from villages and tier-2 and tier-3 cities, in addition to massive celebrities and even Bollywood actors that generate greater than 100,000 content material items for greater than 500 manufacturers in over 10 languages. The platform can be not restricted to influencers from a specific style and has creators in comedy, magnificence, vogue and DIY, amongst different fields.
“We guarantee the appropriate pricing for each influencer, and as a platform, we be certain that as a model, you get one of the best match and one of the best worth for each creator that you just work with,” mentioned Apaksh Gupta, co-founder and CEO, One Impression, in an interview with TechCrunch.
Based in 2018 by Gupta and his brother Jivesh Gupta, One Impression works immediately with content material creators, companies and brokers to supply manufacturers a spread of influencers to suit their necessities. That is in contrast to a standard influencer advertising and marketing company or a creator discovery device, the place you sometimes discover only a single supply to select. Additionally, the startup gives full-stack options starting from discovery, pricing and funds to compliance, authorities contracts, supply and efficiency monitoring.
“We’re bridging the hole between manufacturers and creators. We’re making an attempt to make the partnerships between manufacturers and creators essentially the most seamless, quickest, repeatable and scalable,” the chief mentioned.
Along with serving to manufacturers attain the appropriate influencer, One Impression is constructing instruments for creators to assist them monetize their content material and unlock alternatives to collaborate with different creators and make finance simpler utilizing automation. The startup can be engaged on instruments to let creators simply entry studios throughout India and even get PR alternatives, mentioned Gupta.
At the moment, One Impression has enabled its platform for Instagram and YouTube. It additionally plans to unlock it for LinkedIn and Moj in India and TikTok for world markets over time.
“As completely different platforms proceed to develop into necessary for any market, we’ll proceed to combine these new platforms into our platform,” Gupta mentioned.
One Impression takes a payment from manufacturers for connecting them with influencers and prices commissions to content material creators that develop as soon as the creators develop into extra related for large-scale campaigns. This makes it a two-sided market for each manufacturers and creators. It’s also engaged on launching premium instruments to supply manufacturers a subscription-based mannequin for normal earnings.
The Krafton-led, all-equity Sequence A funding spherical additionally noticed participation from Peer Capital. It valued the startup at $70 million post-money.
On whether or not the funding coming from Krafton was strategic, Gupta advised TechCrunch that the gaming big has come as a monetary investor.
“The creator ecosystem is on the cusp of a revolution. It holds large untapped potential, and we consider that One Impression is rightly positioned to be a world chief of the influencer business. One Impression has an bold imaginative and prescient for the house, and we’re delighted to help them of their journey,” mentioned Sean Hyunil Sohn, CEO of Krafton India, in a ready assertion.
Since 2021, Krafton has invested over $100 million in varied Indian startups to develop into greater than a gaming firm. Nonetheless, the corporate has confronted the banning of its extensively fashionable gaming title Battlegrounds Cell India (BGMI) within the nation — simply months after it struggled to deliver its unique PUBG Cell title again that additionally bought banned by the Indian authorities in 2020 over nationwide safety considerations.
“At Krafton, we’re dedicated to the Indian market and see super potential right here. Now we have invested round $100 million in varied Indian startups since 2021. And our funding in One Impression is a step in the direction of augmenting this ecosystem and creating alternatives of progress,” Sohn mentioned.
One Impression, which claims to have created a worthwhile enterprise with out advertising and marketing, plans to make the most of the contemporary funds to construct a advertising and marketing workforce and scale its gross sales workforce to broaden its presence in world markets, beginning with Southeast Asia and the UAE. It additionally seems to make acquisitions in Dubai to spice up its market presence. The deliberate growth is projected to assist the startup develop its common income price to $40 million.
In 2022, One Impression raised $1 million from angels, together with Peyush Bansal of Lenskart, Anupam Mittal of Folks Group and celebrities equivalent to Olympian Neeraj Chopra and comic Zakir Khan, amongst others.
