Marketing tech company TRIBE has closed its Series A funding round, having raised $5.35 million from investors led by Sydney-based VC fund Exto Partners.

Founded in Melbourne by TV and radio host, Jules Lund, TRIBE connects brands with influencers who create social media content to share with their community of followers.

Named Mumbrella’s ‘Marketing Technology Company of 2016’, TRIBE has raised $8 million in capital in the space of 12 months. Despite having traded for just 10 months, it has partnered with over 500 brands, including Disney, Converse, Vodafone and Adidas, to deliver 900+ campaigns to their growing database of 4500 influencers.

According to CEO Anthony Svirskis, the company has enjoyed 20% month on month revenue growth, due largely to word of mouth, and will use the capital from the ‘oversubscribed’ Series A funding round to expand TRIBE’s suite of technology and enter new regions.

“We appreciate the challenge of balancing early stage product development with rapid market expansion and are therefore taking a very measured approach to where, when and how we expand,” he said.

As part of its plans for expansion, Svirskis said TRIBE has engaged an ex Bain & Company analyst to quantitatively asses 53 markets on key metrics such as social media ad spend, ease of doing business and competitive density.

“Everyday we have influencers, brands and agencies contact us from around the world wanting to utilise our platform,” he said.

“While the demand is encouraging, our investment decisions will always be supported by quantifiable metrics.”

Exto Partners MD Will Deane, who will join the TRIBE board, said the start-up represents a significant addition to their portfolio, which also includes Airtasker.

“Influencer engagement is the fastest growing channel for digital marketing,” Deane said.

“We were attracted to TRIBE’s combination of this high growth industry with a true marketplace business model and an impressive management team.”