In a historic move, Walee Technologies, Pakistan’s largest martech platform focused on influencer marketing and social commerce, has acquired UAE-based Mirrorr.com, a unique AI-driven solution that detects and identifies brands and logos in posted content on social channels.
Industry sources told ProPakistani that Walee is valued at $50 million. As part of the acquisition exchange, Mirrorr got Walee’s $8 million worth of Middle Eastern offices.
This move enhances Walee’s innovative insights tool, which incorporates Mirrorr.com’s advanced AI-driven influencer and content analytics capabilities to enable brands and agencies to research, plan, audit, and tracks the performance of influencer, key opinion leader (KOL), and social media and customer care (SMCC) campaigns, that too across borders.
“We are appreciative of Walee’s board’s trust in Mirror’s team to realize our vision and with Walee’s tech and expertise, we have an exceptional and complete offering for brands and agencies,” said Najib Sabbagh, the head of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) at Walee. “Mirrorr.com’s proprietary built-in video image, audio and text recognition capabilities provide additional dimensions to Walee’s influencer insights and social listening tools, that already track profiles and activities of the full range of influencers’, from social celebrities to nano-influencers that capture also the longtail of influencer marketing.”
Najib Sabbagh, the Founder & CEO of Mirrorr.com, will lead Walee’s MENA operations from the regional headquarters based in Dubai. He will focus on capturing a slice of the region’s e-commerce market, which is valued at $50 billion by 2025 according to AT Kearney.
“We are excited for Mirrorr.com’s talent to join us – they bring decades of experience in strategic, executive managerial, and technical know-how from the media and advertising industry,” said Ahsan Tahir, the co-founder & CEO of Walee Technologies.
“They understand first-hand the changing consumer demographics and buying behaviour of key segments with digital commerce, and how Walee’s purpose-built influencer marketing and social commerce product suite can help. Importantly, we are aggressively investing in building deeper intelligence to enable timely actionable decisions for better outcomes, ranging from content schematics that result in higher audience engagement, to campaign designs to drive awareness and sales performance,” he added.
It is to be pertinent to note that with the fast-evolving market needs, brands and agencies are relying more than ever on a strong performance-driven approach with data-driven solutions. According to Ocean Report, the increasing demand for cloud-based influencer marketing platforms like Walee continues, and this market is forecasted to be worth nearly $35 billion by 2027.
Walee links its social commerce and marketplace platforms to multi-channel networks and influencers with advertisers and media agencies. Content creators and affiliates can earn with Walee and quickly get paid all from one place, and at scale, they can search for advertisers, express interest in campaigns, and execute on deliverables, including sales from their Walee Shops.
“Brands and agencies are aggressively configuring strategies and plan to cater for GenZ’s and Millennials preference on social proof where their decisions, from brand perceptions to purchases, are influenced or persuaded by their trusted networks versus what brands directly communicate to them,” said Najib Sabbagh, the head of MENA at Walee. “We are ready to help them achieve their objectives.”
The Mirrorr.com acquisition comes within six months of the announcement for Walee’s US$2.7 million seed funding from Z2C Limited, multinational communication, advertising, public relations, technology, and commerce holding company headquartered in Karachi, Pakistan.