COVO
What does your company do?
COVO is an AI-powered influencer campaign management platform built for small and medium-sized brands and growing creators, especially in Africa. The platform simplifies influencer marketing by automating campaign building, creator discovery, performance tracking, contracts, payments, and CRM, all in one place. For brands, it’s a cost-effective alternative to traditional agencies. For creators, it's a tool that helps them get discovered, pitch to brands, and manage collaborations. We also run manual campaigns for brands while we continue building the tech.
What is your biggest success?
Bootstrapping COVO into a working product while running manual influencer campaigns with no external funding has been our biggest success. We’ve built a waitlist of over 5,000 influencers and have worked with top-tier brands like ALX South Africa, Food Lovers Market, Urban Zulu, and more. We were one of the top startups selected out of 50+ in ALX Ventures, went on to join their accelerator, and recently signed our first corporate client. We’ve formed key partnerships with AMAKA Studio (a UK-based talent agency with access to 70K creators in 60+ countries) and SpaceSalad Studios (a gaming studio that helps us offer gamified influencer campaigns to brands). We've proven the demand and now we're scaling the tech.
What has been your biggest hurdle?
Our biggest hurdle has been access to funding while building a product that requires deep technical work. Initially, I hired a developer who only delivered a proof of concept but billed us for an MVP, forcing me to rebuild from scratch. I assembled a lean, dedicated team of engineers working part-time and we’ve now completed 60% of our MVP. While bootstrapping, I faced real-life challenges, from eviction to working without consistent income, just to keep the dream alive. Delays in receiving payment from clients has also strained operations. Yet, we’ve remained committed and continue to onboard brands and grow our team. With the right support, we’re ready to scale.
