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Direct.me’s “Link in bio” platform raises $2.6m to help online ‘influencers’ cut through social noise

13 November 2020: Direct.me, the social media platform that connects audiences with influencers’ content, has raised a $2.6m seed round, led by Fuel Ventures, to help people organise their social presence and build greater personal connections with their audiences.

With social networks, such as Instagram and Twitter, setting limitations on including a single link in profiles, Direct.me’s ‘link in bio’ platform acts as an interactive digital business card that defragments users online profiles and maximises interactions with followers. Unlike other similar services Direct.me offers this service for free, including often premium features such as analytics and customization.

Direct.me consolidates anyone’s social presence, thereby providing influencers, small business owners, agencies and charities with a single, simplified website where followers can find everything they need and connect with followers via personal experiences that generate income. With 60% of influencers believing that it is important to keep followers engaged through listening and responding to them, Direct.me is optimizing how these people or businesses connect with followers on a personal level. Furthermore, with 70% of influencers driven to make money through their social channels and the market for online personal fan experiences rapidly growing, Direct.me is further enhancing its toolset to provide interactive super fan opportunities that will create new revenue streams for influencers.

Direct.me was officially launched in Summer 2020 after spending nine months in beta testing. Today’s $2.6m seed investment will allow Direct.me to rapidly scale its team in the UK, US and internationally, improve its “link in bio” platform to connect audiences to all of a users content and help influencers monetise their audience.

Tom Packer, founder and CEO of Direct.me, said “Influencers come in all shapes and sizes and aren’t just celebrities. We recognise this and are finding new ways to help anyone with a social presence gain more from their audience. This can mean developing ways to create greater interaction by delivering a more unified way to move the audience between the things that are important to them or creating new ways to draw income from fans. With the support of Fuel Ventures, we can continue to build on our successful test phase and continue to make it easier than ever for people to find and connect with each other, even those with audiences that have grown to a point where they’re otherwise uncontactable.”

Mark Pearson, founder and managing partner of Fuel Ventures, added “If you want to learn more about an influencer, there’s one place you know to look: that link in bio. Direct.me has huge potential to make that link hugely powerful for anyone with a social presence. We are excited to be part of Tom, Derrick and the team’s journey to build a global platform that defragments users online presence.”

About Direct.me

Direct.me was founded in late 2019 by serial entrepreneur, Tom Packer, and experienced creative director Derrick Chafin. The online platform helps influencers and businesses promote their online activity to their audiences and offer incredible experiences to their followers.