What a year 2020 was! We’re wrapping up the year with a chronological summary of happenings across AnyMind Group.
AnyMind acquires Japan-based influencer network GROVE
GROVE gave us an added presence in Japan, including 150 exclusive creators and 750 registered creators (at that time). We also spoke to both founders about what went down during the acquisition!
Addition of US$26.4m funding, expansion into D2C through investment in LÝFT
LÝFT is a business that produces and sells branded merchandise through online commerce. This signalled our first foray into direct-to-consumer (D2C).
We also raised an additional US$26.4 million in new capital from Japan Post Capital and existing investors, bringing our total funding amount to US$62.3 million.AnyMind acquires POKKT Mobile Ads (POKKT)
POKKT key offerings include in-app video ads, rich media innovations and app performance marketing. Rohit Sharma, CEO and co-founder of POKKT, was appointed as Chief Operating Officer of AnyMind Group, with Otohiko Kozutsumi, co-founder of AnyMind Group taking up the position of Chief Commercial Officer of AnyMind Group.
This acquisition also marked our expansion into India and the Middle East, bringing our total market presence to 13 markets and 17 offices.Revamp of logos
On our 4th birthday, we revamped our logos to what you see today. The new logo reflects our global ambitions and a “coming-of-age” for AnyMind Group.
AnyMind launches cloud manufacturing platform, AnyFactory
AnyFactory looks to connect individuals and businesses with over 200 manufacturers across Asia, enabling users to produce a wide variety of products within the shortest amount of time, at the best price and quality. One of the first areas AnyFactory was used is in influencer D2C.
One of Japan’s most-followed YouTubers joins CastingAsia Creators Network (Now AnyCreator)
Yuka Kinoshita is the most-followed female in Japan on YouTube.
AnyMind becomes a Google Certified Publishing Partner
Publishers across Asia can now tap on AnyMind Group to provide them with Google’s range of services and products to help publishers grow, along with our existing offerings including AdAsia360 (now AnyManager).
AnyMind covers startup cost for influencers to create their own brand and merchandise
AnyMind D2C for influencers is one of our biggest moves to-date that helps influencers grow further. With no buy-in, selected influencers can create their own brand and merchandise through AnyMind.
Social media analytics for CastingAsia (now AnyTag)
With this added feature to our influencer marketing platform, marketers can easily track what’s happening on their own social media profiles, and better understand the impact of influencer marketing on social media growth.
We launched our first-ever influencer D2C brand with Thai influencer, Nutt Nisamanee
Land of N is an essential lifestyle brand that personifies Nutt’s own passion for design and flair for drawing.
Launch of Deal Discovery on AdAsia Digital Platform (Now AnyDigital platform)
This move was targeted at driving greater transparency for advertisers and agencies. Users can easily find and curate display and video advertising inventory, and set up private marketplace (PMP) deals through AdAsia Premium Marketplace (now AnyDigital Premium Marketplace).
All that was just the first half of 2020!Let’s continue…
Vaibhav Odhekar joins AnyMind Group’s board of directors, new additions to management team
Vaibhav Odhekar (pictured leftmost), COO and co-founder of POKKT, was appointed into our board of directors, with Aditya Aima, Siddharth Kelkar and Dinesh Kailash Kumar joining our management team.
We helped promote the digital economy in Malaysia
Working with Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation and other partners, we embarked on an initiative under the #SayaDigital movement, to support Malaysians to take the digital leap to become content creators.
We launched our second influencer D2C brand with Gyp.so
Tatohearts merchandise offers a line of jewellery designed to draw synergy between the mind, body and soul.
And we worked with ANA to bring DOOH to Haneda Airport in Japan
The digital signboards are situated along travellators, walkways and near waiting areas, and the DOOH system includes a camera above the digital signboard that uses computer vision to understand human traffic to determine ad viewability and non-personally identifiable audience data for gender, age and expression attributes. No video is transferred into the storage server – only text-based attributes are processed.
We brought CastingAsia (now AnyTag) to India
Marketers in India can now tap on a comprehensive influencer marketing platform to discover, activate, manage, track and attribute influencer marketing activities, and look towards reaching influencers and audiences both in India, Asia and the rest of the world.
We launched our first-ever influencer marketing report for Asia
Six months after the pandemic hit the world, we looked at how that impacted influencer marketing, and also a host of other useful influencer statistics and insights for Asia.
Thai influencer MayyR launches 11AM-shop with AnyMind
The lifestyle clothing line introduces minimalist-styled items including jackets, pants, t-shirts, crop tops and canvas bags.
On-demand video streaming platform iQIYI teams up with Acqua Media for programmatic video ads
The video streaming platform that brings popular Asian content to international audiences teamed up with acquired AnyMind Group business, Acqua Media. Acqua360 (now AnyManager) is central to this partnership, for the monetization of iQIYI International’s massive video ad inventory in all regions excluding Mainland China and Malaysia.
Dai Viet Group partners with AnyMind Group
The partnership spans Dai Viet Group’s AutoPortal Global group, a massive automotive portal network including Vietnam, India, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Mexico and Nigeria.
This is our first publicly announced partnership that includes multiple solutions from AnyMind Group. Apart from using the AdAsia360 platform (now AnyManager) for monetization, Dai Viet Group also leveraged on CastingAsia Creators Network (now AnyCreator) to incubate and groom AutoPortal’s in-house talents, including those featured as hosts on its YouTube channels, and optimize AutoPortal Global’s social media channels.We also moved into e-commerce with AnyShop
Combining multiple platforms, including AdAsia360 (now AnyManager) for site analytics, CastingAsia (now AnyTag) for social media analytics, AnyFactory for product manufacturing, and integrations including Shopify and other sales channels, AnyShop provides individuals and businesses with a single solution to develop strong e-commerce capabilities.
AnyMind Group connects offerings and rebrands products
At this point, we had built an end-to-end offering for individuals and businesses that are looking to grow even more. Spanning brand building, manufacturing, e-commerce and marketing, we could now uniquely support individuals and businesses throughout various facets of business.
We also announced our renewed mission to make every business borderless. Apart from that, we also renamed our flagship brands, including CastingAsia (to AnyTag), CastingAsia Creators Network (to AnyCreator), and the discontinuation of the AdAsia brand. Instead, two platform brands took its place: AnyDigital (advertising platform) and AnyManager (publisher platform).AnyFactory’s first integration
AnyFactory is now available to Shopify merchants in Japan through the Shopify app store. Shopify merchants can easily access, manufacture and match with over 200 manufacturers directly across Asia. Shopify merchants can also easily manage manufacturing orders, and track production progress, sales and product inventory within a single platform.
AnyTag enters the Middle East
The influencer marketing platform will be the first of a suite of solutions we’ll be launching into the market, to accompany POKKT’s already-established offering for the market.
Together with fashion model MALIA, we launched luxury children’s apparel brand FLECT
Another launch from our collaboration with influencers, FLECT offers high-quality, luxury children’s apparel. Sourced and made through AnyFactory!
We also launched a D2C cosmetics brand, Blair, with Japanese influencer Futeko
Our first cosmetics line launch by our influencer D2C programme, the lineup features lipsticks in two shades: butterfly red and twilight pink.
Well, that’s a wrap for 2020.
2021, here we come!
