UMG IdeaLab pours seed money into Indonesian influencer marketing platform

UMG IdeaLab, the Indonesia-based corporate VC arm of UMG Group Myanmar, announced that it has poured an undisclosed amount of seed funding into the influencer-focused marketing platform SociaBuzz.

SociaBuzz founders Eddy Yansen (left) and Rade Tampubolon / Photo credit: Sociabuzz

Established in 2015, SociaBuzz connects businesses and customers to social media creators and talents for their marketing needs.

Its line of products includes SociaBuzz Gigs, where creators and talents can be discovered and booked by potential clients, and SociaBuzz Shoutout, which allows creators to earn profit from creating personalized video shoutouts for various users or businesses.

It also offers software-as-a-service (SaaS) features for its users, such as its creator-powered digital goods marketplace SociaBuzz Shop and SociaBuzz Tribe, which allows users to get direct support from their audience.

For monetization, it takes a 20% cut from each transaction made through its Gigs and Shoutout offerings, and a 5% commission from each transaction made on its SaaS platforms.

SociaBuzz CEO Rade Tampubolon said the company plans to use the new capital to further improve its line of products and fund its marketing efforts. The company currently claims to have around 72,000 online personalities on its platform, along with 1,350 clients.

In 2015, SociaBuzz said it received a seed round investment of US$62,500 from an anonymous angel investor. The startup back then had already built up a network of roughly 2,700 creators and talents.

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UMG has been operating in Indonesia since 2016, having backed close to 40 startups to date. One of its more recent investments is its pre-series A injection into Indonesian broadcasting and media platform Svara, which pushed the startup’s valuation to around US$10 million.