Listen to this articleFounded in 2011, Gushcloud started out as an influencer marketing platform before it became an influencer marketing agency. Later on, they separated into 2 business groups: Gushcloud Agency and Gushcloud Entertainment. Each of these business groups focuses on different aspects of the company such as innovation, intellectual property creation, influencer advertising platform improvements and so on. To find out more we sat down with Althea Lim, Co-founder and CEO of Gushcloud Entertainment:
Q: You’ve recently announced $3 Million in a new funding round; could you tell us something more?
A: YG Investments, the investment arm of YG Group has invested strategically in Gushcloud International – an influencer marketing and entertainment company – to expand our newly formed entertainment group, Gushcloud Entertainment.
Gushcloud Entertainment will manage top social media influencers and talents globally, and focuses on creating influencer, celebrity and talent led intellectual property (IP) or content. The business units under the group include talent management and representation; beauty content and commerce; exhibitions, tours and festivals; music; digital videos and content pieces.
The entertainment group focuses on deeper penetration into the Southeast Asian consumer market and aims to build out the digital entertainment and distribution infrastructure in Southeast Asia.
Recommended: Fuselier And Associates Financial Provides A Clear Way Out Of Commercial Debt Through Debt Restructuring Services
Q: What is the story behind Gushcloud, how did you start?
A: Founded in 2011, Gushcloud started out as an influencer marketing platform before it became an influencer marketing agency.
In 2012, the company closed a seed round from F&H Holdings, co-founded and chaired by John Wu who was previously the Chief Technology Officer of Alibaba Group. The company also sets up an office in San Francisco.
In 2012 as well, Gushcloud opened an office in Malaysia and in 2013, opened an office in Indonesia.
In 2015, the company was acquired by a Korean digital marketing group, Yello Digital Marketing.
Gushcloud expanded further in the Southeast Asian region and opened 4 other offices in 2016 – Thailand, the Philippines, Korea and Vietnam.
Earlier in 2017, the company acquired uFluencer Group, a social media talent management agency based in LA, to form Gushcloud Talent Agency (GTA), a division within the company that is dedicated to the management of these social media talents.
The company also reorganised into 2 business groups – Gushcloud Agency and Gushcloud Entertainment where the reorganisation provides focused leadership to scale and improving influencer advertising strategy and marketing operations as well as to provide room to innovate in social media talent representation and intellectual property creation.
Q: Tell us something about your ad platform?
A: We built Gush Ad as an ad platform back in 2012. It was an online social media marketing and advertising platform that connects brands to consumers that began in 2012. It hosts online reward programmes where consumers are incentivised as they react with advertisements, enabling them to earn real money and rewards from the platform.
However, till date, we are looking at pivoting the platform to serve the needs of performance marketing through micro influencers.
Recommended: RippleNami: An Imagination Run Wild With The Mission To Connect 5 Billion Unconnected People
Q: What makes you stand out from your competition?
A: We are currently present in 9 different countries, thus making it attractive for brands to approach us when they are planning to do regional campaigns in the different Southeast Asian as well as North Asian markets.
We have represented over 12,000 influencers reaching out to more than 600 million fans, where 10% of these are exclusive to us.
Our Entertainment Group also serves as building businesses around these influencers and social media creators. That creates more sustainability for these talents.
Q: What are your plans for the future?
A: Gushcloud has plans to expand to other parts of Asia – China, India and the Middle East – as well as in Australia in the next 2 years.
The company plans to be the William Morris Endeavour of Asia and to build out the digital media and entertainment ecosystem in Asia. We also hope to be valued at a billion dollars by 2025.
Activate Social Media:
