Springleap goes big: expands into Middle Eastern, pan-African markets

Springleap is on a mission to take over the world. Backed by a new group of experienced industry leaders and a community of 22 000 creatives, the crowdsourced design startup is expanding into the Middle Eastern and pan-African markets.

Initially hailing from an office in Cape Town — 2014’s World Capital of Design — the crowdsourcing design startup is today operating in New York City as well as Johannesburg. News of its expansion comes hot on the heels of it raising a R4.1-million funding round a few weeks ago from a group of international investors.

Read more: SA crowdsource design startup Springleap secures R4m+ Angel round

Springleap’s co-founders Eran Eyal and Evan Walther have recruited Trevor Wolfe as the Managing Director and Head of Commercialisation to oversee their international client base expansion.

The company has also appointed Andrew Price as Head of Cape Town Business Development, Bessie Sibanyoni as Head of Johannesburg Business Development, Julia Read as Community Manager, and Design Business Development Associate Thobile Sibanyoni.

Read more: Life after t-shirts: Ventureburn gets the exclusive behind Springleap’s pivot

Wolfe is an active advisor to ad-tech and media-tech startups and has brought over a dozen new media technology products and research tools to market for Fortune 500 brands. In addition to the valuable experience earned while project managing expansion efforts at global insights firm Gerson Lehman Group, and technology firm Moveline; Wolfe has held senior digital product and marketing leadership positions at research houses Kantar and TNS, both divisions of WPP, the world’s largest media and marketing services conglomerate.

Wolfe recognised the untapped potential that exists in the South African tech startup landscape, and in particular, Springleap’s innovative business model:

The booming markets in countries like Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Angola and Dubai are creating exciting opportunities for South African companies, and global brands with South African footholds. Our brand clients are aggressively entering new territories, while our agency clients are pitching and winning multi-country accounts. To keep up, we’ll be investing significantly in growing our pan-African creative community, and launching exciting new products over the next few months.

We’ll be keeping an eye out for those exciting new products over the next few months.