Memmo.me on the way to achieve unicorn status

Memmo.me, a celebrity engagement platform for personalised messages from stars to fans, has been creating hundreds of connections each day. The Swedish firm is close to win the unicorn race. So far, it has raised about 24 million Euros and lower market overall market. In an exclusive interview with Bizz Buzz, Abhishek Sarkar, General Manager and Head of India operations, Memmo.me, says: "There are already someone in this space with unicorn tag. So, our growth plans are immense in terms of unicorn and hence I am currently not in a position to comment exactly."

Indian market is already a mature market in terms of this product per say, right there are already a lot of existing players in the market of Indian specific players. And there is competition. Any competition is healthy because that means that the market has good potential

Gifting in India, so far, was either a chocolate or a flower or things that was very perishable. Right now, we're trying to create a digital product, which makes impact on the people. So, we've seen in the past that the effect that a celebrity wish brings on to the person receiving it is intense

What is unique about memmo.me? How the platform works?

Memmo is a Swedish company and it is the celebrity engagement platform where we help celebrities and fans connect with each other. That's one part of the business. The other part of the business is where we are trying to solve for the brands to connect with celebrities as well. So, a lot of brands these days like to do social media promotions, and they don't know how to get in touch with celebrities for their brand promotions. So, we kind of solve that category for them as well. And in its front, it's mainly to do with motivational talks, you know, birthday wishes, the users are really elated to see these celebrities wishing them on their behalf. And that's working really well for us.

In an Indian context, how many celebrities have you been with and what is the progress so far?

We started our work for India about three months back. We have boarded about 240-250 celebrities on the platform. Now, the list ranges from TV actors to Bollywood celebrities to sports stars. We have a special category for child artists as well. We are trying to offer everyone something or the other so any platform can find you know celebrated from their favourite genre, be it music, be it sports, be it TV and any age group. We have veteran actors like Prem Chopra on our platform. We have young artists as well.

Can you please name some of the lead actors from Bollywood and well-known artists from TV in your list of celebrities?

In Bollywood, we don't have any lead actors. But, we do have people like Arti Chabariya and Himani Shivpuri, who have done prominent roles in Hindi film industry. We have Shekhar Suman and amongst some other veteran names. We have younger child artists like Tirth Joisher, Yash Sehgal, Vansh Sehani, Shakti Kapoor and Madhusha.

How about the sportspersons on the platform?

We have a lot of cricket players boarded on our platform like Sarfaraz Khan and Manan Vohra. Also, we are onboarding more sportsmen currently playing for Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022. One is playing for Punjab - one is for Delhi. We also have football players from the Indian Super League.

How could you create such a craze among the young generation in India over just three months?

Today, we are disrupting the gifting industry. Gifting in India, so far, was either a chocolate or a flower or things that was very perishable. Right now, we're trying to create a digital product, which makes impact on the people. So, we've seen in the past that the effect that a celebrity wish brings on to the person receiving it is intense. Now, people are happy with this.

Do you provide audio/video or the autographs? In what way, the celebrities are wishing their fans?

In a video message, the celebrities personalise their message on an occasion. For example, if I want to wish my mom on a birthday, I can book a video message from her favourite celebrity and then the message will directly reach her inbox. And it will have all details like her birthday and her name. The celebrity makes it personalised to that experience. You can give out instructions on what like the celebrity to speak about any special mentioned about so all these factors kind of enhance the experience of personalisation.

Where are you from becoming a unicorn?

So, we've raised about 24 million Euros so far and lower market overall market.

What is your turnover?

Turnover is something that I will not be in a position to comment at this point of time. We are growing at 20x speed from last year. We are on in terms of unicorn I don't think that's the goal right now to look at becoming a unicorn, but the goal is to become the most go-to marketplace for personalised video messages. And that's really we are focused on.

How will you achieve the unicorn status?

There are already someone on the space with unicorn tag. We are already on we have a focus on growth. So, this quarter alone, we are launching three new markets, which is India, Brazil and Mexico. So, our growth plans are immense in terms of unicorn and hence I am currently not in a position to comment exactly.

Do you mean that Memmo.me is on the way to become a Indian unicorn in future?

So, we have growth strategy and plans in place.

How Indian market is doing in this space, what is the potential?

The Indian market is already a mature market in terms of this product per say, right there are already a lot of existing players in the market of Indian specific players. And there is competition. Any competition is healthy because that means that the market has good potential. And I think all these companies have not even touched the tip of the iceberg yet there's a lot more penetration that needs to happen. This is a new concept, the awareness is still a lot to go and we are here to ensure that we create awareness, create the product and ensure delivery of a fantastic personalization, personalized products so that you know you can you can completely get a different gifting experience.

How many players are already there on the space?

At least two to three big players are there in this space already in India? Like the string, go nuts. There's also an international company called cameo that has entered the space which are unicorns already. So, these largest video platforms outside of the US, more of trying to have a difference between us and a lot of other international platforms is that we have a local team who understands the local flavours and then customise our products. All our products are customisable as well. For example, we have add on features like 24 hour delivery, one hour focus delivery and also you can ask the celebrity to favourite celebrate to wish in the costume of their serials as well. All these add-on products also kind of and had a soft test launch done a few months back where we saw a lot of Indians ordered express delivery. So that was what I would be most excited about in our major launch.

What are the future plans of the company?

I think this is what we are looking forward to. So, we see that the market is very huge. There's a lot of potential. We are talking about something special to give to the Indian audience and have completely, you know, completely locally flavoured the trends and we're looking forward to a big bang launch.