In this digital age, companies are using every available approach to reach out to potential customers. Influencer marketing is one such way through which companies are reaching potential customers. Because of this, influencer marketing has become a trend. Now, companies are leveraging the influence of social media stars and are bringing in millions of worth of sales.

But finding the right influencer to execute the campaign is not an easy task. Additionally, a lot depended on manual work. 

Making this process easier, Opportune delivers data-driven influencer marketing to Indian brands across verticals. The influencer marketing platform enabling companies to strengthen brand image, grow social media presence and increase sales through influencer marketing, 

Startup Story: Opportune | SME Focused Influencer Marketing Platform

Founding Team

Started by Kanishk Kanakia and Nikhil Kothari in 2020,  Opportune is an SME focused influencer marketing platform delivering data-driven influencer marketing to Indian brands across verticals. 

The startup is on a mission is to curate effective influencer marketing campaigns for Indian brands while giving content creators/influencers a platform to monetise their creativity and influence.

Kanishk says that Opportune is betting on the thesis that nano and micro-influencers are a good fit for Indian SMEs. These influencers, mostly influencers on social media platform Instagram who have between 1,000-100,00 followers, are cost-effective and highly engaged with their audience, adds Kanishk.

How Opportune Started?

While working as an investment banker in Singapore, Kanishk met a lot of tech entrepreneurs. Working with them made him realised that technology has the power to transform anything.

He quit his job and came back to Kolkata in 2019. Kanishk then connected with his childhood friend and schoolmate Nikhil Kothari, an engineering graduate. Nikhil was also a technology enthusiast and was looking to start something of his own.

Kanishk, who had come across several influencer marketing platforms in Singapore, noticed the influencer marketing trend picking up in India. As his family owned a homegrown fashion brand, he soon started scouting for influencers. This provided Kanishk with first-hand experience of influencer selection, campaign management, and performance tracking and all the intricacies associated with it. 

And in June 2020, Kanishk and Nikhil set up Opportune and launched the platform four months later in October.

On the platform side, Opportune is a free tool that is looking to operate on a freemium model starting September 2021. On the agency side, the influencer marketing platform charges about a 10% service fee on top of the campaign budget and a nominal monthly subscription fee.  

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USP Of Opportune

Aiming to revolutionise the way small and medium businesses acquire customers online, Opportune, through data-driven API integrations with Instagram and Facebook, enables Indian brands to make more informed influencer selection and budget allocation decisions. 

Kanishk says,

“Through our proprietary technology suite, we can speed up influencer discovery by 10 times and reduce campaign execution time by over 75 percent. We are very focused on coming up with developing comprehensive technology solutions to track ROI, performance, and effectiveness of influencer marketing campaigns.” 

The platform is easy to use. Once brands sign up on the Opportune app, they can use tools to filter, search and sort influencers based on their budget and nine other parameters, including reach, impressions, engagement rate, and audience analysis.

Nikhil says,

“Our clients can also create campaigns, create influencer lists, message influencers directly and track social media insights for campaign posts and deliverables on the app.” 

The influencer marketing platform can also detect influencers with a high number of fake followers, ensuring every influencer marketing rupee is invested wisely in the right influencer.

Present Situation Of Opportune

Opportune has onboarded about 60 brands and more than 2,000 influencers across India since going full scale in June this year.

Kanishk says,

“Since the launch of the Opportune mobile app in June this year, we have onboarded over 60 brands on our platform. We have also worked with JK Spices & Food Products and Teal and Terra, and have a strong relationship with ethnic fashion brands such as Radha Krishna Silks, Manisha Creations, and Mulberry Blue.”

Future Plans

Opportune plans to aggressively onboard more brands onto the platform while growing its agency business and looks to raise a seed round of funding of around $335,000 for product development, sales, marketing, office and administrative expenses

As per Kanishk, Opportune is working with a vision to be the go-to influencer marketing platform for consumer-facing SMEs in India today. Additionally, the startup aims o onboard over 500 brands by the end of FY 2021-22.

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