- Breef announced it raised $16 million. These are the details.
Breef, which is known as the world’s first online agency marketplace, announced it has announced $16 million in new funding led by Greycroft. And the platform has transformed project outsourcing for global brands and emerging businesses by facilitating agency connections in under seven days – through a combination of proprietary technology and payment innovations. The total investment to date is $21 million.
The platform hosts more than 10,000 agencies, across 25 countries, and has now passed $100 million in project value created on the platform. Established companies such as Pantone, Spotify, and Heineken, as well as emerging brands such as Byte and beverage company Flying Embers, utilize Breef to find the best agencies for over 50 project types. This includes everything from branding to website development, digital marketing, content creation, etc.
Breef democratizes connections between brands and boutique agencies, which is simplifying and improving the planning, scoping, pitching and payment processes for outsourcing. And its platform allows companies to create a project or access support from a Breef Marketing Strategist, and receive pitches from vetted agencies within 7 days. This process eliminates the need for complex and time-consuming requests for proposals (RFPs), delivering the flexibility to outsource projects in days – instead of months – saving brands an average of 35 percent in fees per project through competitive pricing.
Core to that value proposition is Breef’s proprietary technology that allows for the matching between brands and agencies, enabling brands to form partnerships curated to their exact needs, timeline, and budget. And for the first time, companies are able to transact high-value projects online – in a world where meeting face-to-face no longer matters – and net-30 terms are now replaced by same-day payments.
Breef’s Series A was led by Greycroft. And Breef has also welcomed strategic investment from leading funds including BDMI (part of media powerhouse Bertelsmann), Touch Ventures, UTA.VC (United Talent Agency Ventures), The House Fund, Rackhouse Ventures, and Burst Capital.
Breef’s latest funding round will be used to continue to evolve the product offering – building on the new platform experience releasing this month. In addition, focus will be on growing its global team, announcing its first international bases in the UK and Australia. And the company will invest further in its industry-first payment infrastructure, BreefPay, and expand upon partnerships with brands like spend automation platform Ramp, venue rental marketplace Peerspace, and small business marketplace Newity.
KEY QUOTES:
“Breef has taken the analog agency model online. The amount of demand we are seeing from brands and agencies flowing through the platform shows companies are looking for a new way to get creative work done. Our belief is that Breef is not only repositioning marketing spend, but creating an accessible solution for quality talent – no matter market conditions.”
— Ali Schleider, Investor at Greycroft
“As brands evolve with the times, we need speed and agility to meet the ever-changing demands of modern marketing. Breef has delivered us easy access to new, specialized agencies that can help us quickly jumpstart initiatives.”
— Elley Cheng, Vice President and General Manager at Pantone
“We are building for the next generation of work. Our approach is transforming the marketing industry at large by rewarding transparency, creating unprecedented access to agency talent, and helping companies reduce costs. Brands – big or small – can be agile on our platform and specialized, boutique agencies can finally work with their dream clients.”
— Emily Bibb, Co-Founder of Breef
