Richard Prime/Sonovate.
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Sonovate becomes funding partner to influencer payment app
XPO believes there is a disconnect between what major brands and the influencers they use think is a reasonable payment time.
Recruitment lender Sonovate is teaming up with a months-old app that speeds up payments to influencers from big brands.
XPO, based in London, pays out to content creators on behalf of the brands using them, including the likes of TikTok, Nike, Experian, BooHoo and Estee Lauder.
It launched in the summer of this year and claims it can cut the average payment times from 90 days to a handful of hours.
It believes there is a disconnect between what major brands and the influencers they use think are reasonable payment time terms.
Under the “strategic partnership” Sonovate, the London and Cardiff-based lender which enables invoice financing for contract workers, will be XPO’s sole funding partner and the companies will combine technology.
“Combining Sonovate's industry-recognised embedded finance tools and XPO’s easy-to-navigate app, the partners help influencers to get paid within as little as 24 hours after completing a job,” Sonovate said.
The overall influencer market is now worth approximately $14bn globally and by 2022 the market will be twice the size it was in 2019, according to industry figures.
Richard Prime, co-founder and co-CEO at Sonovate, commented: “XPO is building up a significant first-mover advantage in a market that is massively underserved and hugely scalable.
“The traditional 90-day payment cycle of businesses simply doesn’t chime with a modern gig worker’s expectation of near-immediate invoice settlement."
“Increasingly, businesses recognise the benefit of using gig workers, such as influencers, to help them engage new customers, but too few of them are set up operationally and financially to handle changing payment expectations.”
Lotanna Ezeike, co-founder and CEO of XPO, said: “Younger people’s desire for greater ownership over what they do and how they spend their working lives has been a big driver behind content creation as a career path."
"Brands are alive to this shift and are working out how best they can work with content creators and get the best from this generation of young people determined to work differently."
"Our partnership with Sonovate provides brands with an attractive alternative to managing multiple influencers a month and the huge admin issue that this creates."
"Not only do we manage the flow of finance, but we facilitate communication between brands and influencers, ensuring a good working relationship.”
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