Ben Jeffries of Influencer – YST Kent 2016 Winner
Ben Jeffries, a 20 year old student from Tunbridge Wells with his business ‘Influencer’, has achieved their target on CrowdCube of £100k worth of investment within the first 24 hours of going public. Influencer connects brands with famous individuals on social media, who they call ‘Influencers’. The campaign has thus far gained 123 investments from as little as £10 through to larger amounts of £10,000 and is already in the overfunded stage.
Ben commented “I felt quietly confident that I would achieve the investment but didn’t quite expect to hit the target within the first 24 hours – I had spent weeks planning a massive marketing plan but as soon as we launched, it became clear we didn’t need to use it”
Having been shortlisted for the Virgin VOOM Start-up awards early on in the year where he participated in a world record live pitchathon and then went on to win the local entrepreneurial initiative ‘Young Start-up Talent’ £50,000 prize fund for Kent 2016.
The influencers are able to generate an organic buzz for the brands they work with. They have a variety of Influencers on their books including top names such as world football star Ronaldinho and realty TV star Amy Willerton, however their main focus is with micro Influencers – those Influencers with followers of between 10,000 and 50,000. In the short time that Influencer has been operating they have worked with a number of large brands such as Badoo, Uber, Triangl, Crowdmobile and Southbeach Swimwear.
The app developers started the work needed to automate the process in September and will take a large chunk of the investment but the remainder will help to deliver a targeted marketing campaign and employ additional staff.
“Through the development of the new web application, we believe we will have the capacity to work with 100x more Influencers through a more efficient CRM system”. Ben added “An increased database of Influencers will provide greater variety and choice for brands as to who they use to promote themselves. The web application will also provide brands with more detailed analytics and access to legal documents. I believe this will further increase the value of the service.”
Ben attributes his success to not just the team, but also the accelerator programmes and competitions he has been apart of.
“From the support I had at both VOOM & Young Start-Up Talent, I was able to really get the business into the right gear to accelerate forward. I then got accepted onto the Crowd10 accelerator programme, which enabled me to become investor ready and achieve these goals.”
The CrowdCube campaign for Influencer is officially still open until 25th November providing it doesn’t meet its further overfunded target – therefore still time for investors to obtain a slice of the action – please visit www.crowdcube.com/influencer (Please be invest aware – capital at risk).
To find out more about Influencer visit www.influencer.uk