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Willow

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Willow

Today, every SME realises that content marketing and online visibility are a must, but often there is no budget for an external consultant. With Willow, we offer an answer with which we want to become the market leader in our segment.

Ludwig Dumont, CEO of Willow

Founded in 2018, the technology company’s overall mission is to make social media marketing accessible to SMEs that today do not have the resources, knowledge or time to do it entirely on their own. “Our vision is to eventually be the only solution professional service providers and entrepreneurs need to manage and control their social media presence. From structure, to inspiration, to guidance and optimisation,” says CEO and founder Ludwig Dumont.

Willow’s story starts in San Francisco, where Ludwig Dumont helped several companies with their social media as a marketing consultant. He soon realised that many SMEs and independent entrepreneurs do not have the resources to hire agencies or consultants, but also lack the knowledge or time to do everything themselves. However, the power of social media is very clear. It plays an important role in the sales process, helps build a strong employer brand and generally puts an organisation or entrepreneur on the digital map. That misalignment between what was available on the market and the important role social media plays for businesses was the basis for the creation of Willow.

The solution subsequently developed by the Willow team and refined over three years is a combination of a strong and simple social media tool that provides structure, inspiration and insights (and that learns and optimises using a smart algorithm) combined with coaching – both human and digital – by a social media expert. The combination of efficiency and intelligence (via the tool), and knowledge and guidance (via the expert) is an asset for business service providers, entrepreneurs and B2B-focused SMEs. Today, hundreds of entrepreneurs and business service providers are Willow customers, about 70% of them in Belgium and the Netherlands, and 30% in the United States. Willow sees promising traction among accountants and tax specialists, HR professionals and legal service providers.

Partners in ambition at Willow

Social media platform Willow completed a new round of capital in 2020. New investors SmartFin and PMV together with existing investors imec.istart, Alex Brabers and Marc Vanderheyden are responsible for the additional funding amounting to EUR 1.5 million. With the additional funding, Willow wants to help even more companies and entrepreneurs with their social media. Additionally, the scale-up also wants to further increase its international footprint. Willow wants to become the leading social media solution now that digitalisation within the SME industry is in top gear.

Els Lamberts Senior Investment Manager Els.Lamberts@pmv.eu
Robin Mees Senior Investment manager robin.mees@pmv.eu