Over the last two years, we’ve been covering the growing success of Feeligo (here, here and here), a rising adtech leader in branded, rich media content for native ad campaigns. They first started making their mark in the ‘sticker’ or ’emoji’ market, a hot space in Asia, but still underdeveloped in Europe and elsewhere. Feeligo changed all that, attracting big name customers such as Cnet, Disney, Guerlain, P&G, Publicis, and Carrefour and drawing 600 million monthly active users from around the world on the back of their rich media content (which now also includes gifs and video), proving the merits of branded stickers / emoji advertising. Undoubtedly their mobile-first approach has big a driver of their success as brands increasingly struggle to find ways to resonate and engage with increasingly mobile-centric consumers.
Having successfully raised two seed rounds, they’ve just announced closing a €1.5 million series A round with Iris Capital, which they’ll leverage to support their overall business (team, tech, etc) as they continue their rapid growth and to expand their footprint internationally, most notably with the opening in the advertising capital of the world, NYC.
On the international front, they’ve already had quite a bit of success thus far. Feeligo have managed to expand quickly across Europe and have even begun to gain momentum in Japan, where our very own RudeVC introduced them to Japanese digital players at top tech conference Dash Camp in 2014. Feeligo were, consequently, prominently featured in leading daily The Japan Times. Having experienced such traction in both Europe and Asia, they are certainly well-positioned to take on the US market which, while highly competitive and costly, offers massive upside in terms of value and credibility for a fast-growing adtech startup.
Jonathan Levy-Bencheton and Davide Bonapersona, co-founders of Feeligo, are confident they’ll continue to build on their success to date in the US and elsewhere, highlighting the clear value they bring to brands and consumers, adding : “We have created a virtuous circle that brings a real service to the users. Our formats improve the messaging experience: users love our content. Numbers speak for themselves: our formats are for example used 5 times more than the others, get 100% more brand recognition compared to traditional formats (banners) and increase purchase intent by 15%”