Brands collaboration marketplace Partnar banks $200,000 Seed round from Skalata

B2B marketing partnerships platform Partnar has raised $200,000 in a Seed investment from Melbourne early-stage VC Skalata Ventures.

The marketplace startup describes itself as a “matchmaker for business collaborations” connecting brands and businesses in the face of rising costs and decreasing reliability from online advertising.

Partnar offers an alternative to pay-per-click marketing campaigns for brands to increase exposure, subscriber numbers, and revenue more organically through partnerships.

They can use the platform to target their chosen customer demographics and psychographics and be matched with relevant partner, using a range of partnership types, such as email and social media campaigns, and effectively share their customer bases.

Founders Jamie Pitt and Ryan Elliott set out to revolutionise how B2B partnerships are formed, at a time when people online can opt out of app tracking and cookies are being phased out.

With users now able to opt out of app tracking and the phasing out of cookies, advertisers can’t track, target, exclude, or personalise for users as easily as before.

Elliot said Partnar reduces the time and resources marketing teams spend trying to connect with partners.

“It’s about understanding lifestyles, blending communities, and forging value-driven partnerships,” he said. 

Pitt said their product translates best across e-commerce and SaaS.

“In e-commerce, there are so many valuable assets you can leverage for partnerships. They’ve usually got a social following, an email list, a customer base – even closed Facebook groups and communities,” he said.

“But they’ve also got orders going out every week where they can insert fliers and samples from other businesses.

“SaaS is always quite savvy in terms of technology, and they’re always looking for tech partnerships, integrations and channel partnerships. So it’s easy to match those partners up as well.”

Partnar’s client roster already includes Naked Wines, BeforePay, and rising star food business HelloFresh.

In one Partnar match, BeforePay inserted promotional flyers into HelloFresh’s e-commerce deliveries, and HelloFresh in return secured access to 650,000 email addresses.

Elliot said a pairing between Instyle Solar and the Tesla rent/test drive startup evee had strong brand values alignment between, and an email campaign alone delivered a $30,000 profit for Instyle Solar.

Skalata investment manager Tom Smalley said he was excited by Partnar’s solution to address unreliable third-party data in marketing. 

“Advertisers who haven’t focused on first-party data will face huge challenges over the next 12 months,” he said.

“Partnar’s emphasis on brand partnerships provides an increasingly valuable and authentic way for brands to reach new customers in their target demographic.”