Ad tech Start-up WYSPR achieves £450,000 pre-seed funding to democratize Influencer marketing. 

WYSPR, a London based Ad-tech start-up, is leading the charge in revolutionising how brands drive awareness through Influencing marketing. The company has succeeded in securing funding of £450,000 to expand their offering and develop into a SaaS platform.  

WYSPR is the world’s first ‘Friendvertising’ and social data collection agency offering a bespoke crowd-promotion service. Founded by two great friends Oliver Bourne and Eliot Wood who brought the company alive from their University of Essex accommodation, WYSPR allows brands to use real people and their consumers to advocate for them on social media. This way Brands get the most authentic marketing possible whilst giving power back to the individual, allowing them to sell their data and influence in a clean and ethical manner.

Investors include East of England Angels through Anglia Capital Group including: Patrick Smith (Lead), former Chairman of Swinton holdings, Simon Bax, Former CFO of Pixar and CEO of Encompass Digital Media, Trevor Wheatly-Perry, Director of Everbridge EMEA, and Barry Chevallier-Guild, Ex-Owner of Aspall Cyder. 

Outside of ACG, investment has come from Alan Gross, Founder of Chefworks, and the University of Essex.

In their commercial tests alone, WYSPR’s Friendvertising has shown to increase the average engagement of a campaign by 10x. The average influencer campaign achieves 2.4% engagement rate whereas a Friendvertiser achieves upwards of 15% on a feed post and 30% on a story. This is how WYSPR has achieved engagement rates of over 45% on campaigns.

“We believe that brands and consumers are both better when they work together, WYSPR’s goal exists to connect them in a direct and genuine manner.” Oliver Bourne, Co-founder.

Through Anglia Capital Group, WYSPR raised its minimum target of £275,000 within 1 week and had its first commitment just 10 minutes after pitching. They were able gain so much interest in their Pre-seed round that they manage to overfund by £100,000 with other investors still interested in funding for future rounds.

“I very much like the concept of Friendvertising which sits at the heart of WYSPR’s business, brining greater integrity to influence marketing. I am also impressed with the huge enthusiasm Eliot and Ollie bring to this project. They have already proven their idea works and I’m delighted to support them in their bid to build the business up to industrial scale.” Patrick Smith, Investor

Until now, WYSPR has been operating in its commercial testing period limiting users and only working with select brands such as The Athenian and Yo! Sushi, despite demand increasing.

Furthermore, the funding and expansion of WYSPR come at a critical time for both brands and UK consumers. With cookie tracking and unique identifier tags being restricted, brands and marketers are looking to reassess their digital ad strategy with new innovations, WYSPR provide a direct, targeted, and measurable alternative. Meanwhile, consumers are need of new supplementary income sources, with their influence being an asset that they we are unable to monetize before.

The funding will enable WYSPR to add more members to their team so they can develop their SaaS offering, drive user acquisition, and expand to meet growing demand. WYSPR is currently free to download from the IOS app store with the Android in development to be released this summer.