Digital marketing tech startup Sinorbis announced the close of an oversubscribed bridging round, led by the team behind Executive Channel Holdings (ECH), who recently divested their Australian office display network to oOh! media in a $68.5 million sale.
The funding will be used to accelerate the launch and deployment of the digital marketing platform, Sinorbis, which helps Australian and international companies to more effectively market their products to Chinese digital consumers whom already spend $4.3 trillion (AUD) online annually.
“Australian companies have traditionally struggled to market their goods directly to Chinese digital consumers, relying on intermediaries such as Daigous and local Chinese agencies to do the work for them,” said Sinorbis CEO and co-founder, Nicolas Chu.
“Fortunately, with our new platform, Australian companies and their marketing agencies will be able to directly market to Chinese digital consumers, much like they’re already able to do in the West.
“The digital marketing spend in China from Western companies already sits at US$4.7 billion, however, much of this is misdirected or simply lost in translation. Our technology will help better target this spend and be the catalyst to grow this market to nearly $30 billion annually in the next decade.”
What does this funding mean for Sinorbis?
As part of this new fund raising, Sinorbis also announced a number of advisory board appointments including Bruce Fink, Principal of privately-held Bickham Court Group of Companies and Executive Chair of ECH, Charles Parry-Okeden, the Global CEO of ECH, Chris Winterburn, Managing Director of Media i and Ian Gardiner, Head of Startup Ecosystem at Amazon Web services.
“Working with Bruce, Charles and Chris to conclude this investment round has been an incredible experience, and I’m looking forward to their continued input as we scale Sinorbis and work towards our launch” continued Nicolas Chu.
“I’m also very excited to be able to formalise our relationship with Ian, an incredibly successful start-up founder in his own right and an advocate for the start-up ecosystem in Australia.”
“Sinorbis’ ability to gain strong momentum and rapidly build a market leadership position in the Chinese digital marketing space is very impressive and testament to the capability and experience of the management team,” said Charles Parry-Okeden.
“We’re investing in a unique – and exciting – blend of Western and Chinese experience with the capability to build a product that delivers for all sides of the Pacific.”
At the conclusion of this round, investment to date in the pre-Series-A digital marketing technology start-up has reached $3.9 million and the consulting arm of Sinorbis has recently signed a number of highprofile clients including BridgeClimb Sydney, Bridestow Lavender Farm, A’Kin and University of Western Sydney.
What exactly does Sinorbis do?
Sinorbis is a Marketing Technology start-up headquartered in Sydney with offices in Shanghai, Beijing and Colombo. Sina, China in Latin, and Orbis, meaning world, succinctly captures the company’s mission: To connect the growing online Chinese demand with the rest of the world.
Sinorbis helps Western clients and marketing agencies implement best practice digital marketing techniques in China via its innovative cloud-based marketing software and diverse suite of digital services.
The company allows SMEs and enterprises to realise their full potential in the Chinese market by:
- Creating a multi-channel digital presence for this market.
- Optimising existing digital marketing efforts and website.
- Measuring marketing performance and leveraging opportunities for improvement.
Since launching in 2016, Sinorbis’ service arm has secured prominent clients such as the REA Group, University of NSW, University of Technology Sydney and University of Tasmania as clients in Australia, as well as several prominent brands in Asia and the US.
