Social Hub wins big
Socius curates social media to tell the story of an event inside a stylish, user-friendly design
Photo courtesy of Socius
Founders Daniel Butler and Frode Jensen.
Rasmus Falck
Oslo, Norway
At the New York Fashion Week, the Norwegian startup Socius was promoted by Victoria Beckham and Cara Delevingne. The results were that one million images and videos of the fashion week were shared on social media. Socius’s Hub has become the place to follow this exclusive event online. Socius makes it easy for brands to deliver engaging online stories. They let brands curate and display the best content being shared about them in social media onto their own stylized Social Hub.
Behind the company is an international team. They all have branding and advertising backgrounds and have produced digital campaigns for brands over the last decade across the Nordic countries. The company was born when they created the first-ever social hub for the New York Fashion Week in 2012, taking content from Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram and uniting it into a stylish user-friendly design.
The entrepreneurs, Daniel Butler and Frode Jensen, met at MESH in Oslo and relocated to Berlin. From there they set up U.S. operations in New York with some important customers. The entrepreneurs proudly say that the company is driven by Scandinavian design. They were then contacted by Axel Springer, one of Europe’s largest multimedia brands, which had picked them to pitch for a chance to be one of the 19 startups included in their Plug And Play accelerator program. Six months later they were co-hosting a huge Fashion’s Night Out party in N.Y. By the end of the week they had curated over 200,000 Fashion Week moments and published around 7,000 of the best.
Last spring Socius moved back to Norway to get financing. Since they did not speak German it was useless to try in Germany. They entered the first Angel Challenge held in Norway. This is a workshop-based program for angel investors and startups. For seven evenings, 20 angel investors work together on investor analysis of a handful promising startups. The startups are competing for a final investment of over 1 million NOK.
In December the champion of the first Angel Challenge was crowned. It was a close race between five great startups, but the winner was Socius. Not only did they receive the investment of 1.3 million NOK, but also 26 investors with tons of experience on the team. According to the jury the winner has a strong team and the company is entering into an already existing global market with a new innovative service and solution.
Startup Norway works to help Norwegian startups grow and scale internationally, by increasing attention towards our region from international investors, media, and potential customers. They initiated the Angel Challenge.
We need more private capital that also comes with competence and experience to help new entrepreneurs establish and scale innovative companies!
This article originally appeared in the Dec. 25, 2015, issue of the Norwegian American Weekly. To subscribe, visit SUBSCRIBE or call us at (206) 784-4617.
