In a Nutshell
- Turkish Magfi, a company enabling advertising on Telegram and Discord, has raised €1M in a seed investment round.
- The round is led by Eleven Ventures and includes participation from Boğaziçi Ventures from Turkey, and angel investors Zoran Arsovski from Bulgaria and Horia Manda from Romania.
- The company plans to expand into the Brazilian market.
Advertising in decentralized chat communities
Magfi aims to analyze public groups on Telegram and Discord, labeling them by extracting parameters such as audience, view, and click predictions. That information may come in handy in the upcoming months as Telegram is currently under bigger scrutiny over alleged illegal use of its chat options.
The company was founded in 2021 by Mustafa Fikret Uğur, the founding team soon included Deniz Duran, Atakan Kocaayan, Kadir Gölcük, and Okan Özbay.
Magfi analyzes public groups on Telegram and Discord, labeling them by extracting parameters such as audience, view, and click predictions. Similar to Google Ads and Meta Ads, this platform allows brands to advertise in groups using micro-targeting and a flexible budget.
“The world is shifting towards Web3-based messaging, with Telegram and Discord leading the way as the pioneering platforms in this sector. There are over 1 billion monthly active users and enormous potential in the communities on these platforms, and at Magfi, we are unlocking that potential. Brands can now reach audiences they couldn’t access before by targeting highly relevant ads through Magfi Ads in these platforms”, said Mustafa Fikret Uğur, CEO and co-founder at Magfi.
Currently, Magfi can deliver over 600K unique views daily and share ads in thousands of groups across Turkey. According to their data, Magfi has experienced over 25x revenue growth within just one year.
Eleven Ventures partner Svetozar Georgiev joins the board to drive strategic growth
Lima Next Ventures participated as the sole investor in the pre-seed round, and this round, totaling €1M, was led by Eleven Ventures. LPs Zoran Arsovski and Horia Manda also joined, along with Boğaziçi Ventures as the only participant from Turkey.
Svetozar Georgiev, a Partner of Eleven Ventures, shared, “Advertising on decentralized chat-based communities is a Blue Ocean market, where Magfi has a head start. Unlike traditional social media, the dynamics here are somehow different, which is both a challenge and a great opportunity.”
Georgiev will join the Magfi board, bringing valuable expertise to support the company’s growth. His role will be all encompassing – from strategy formation, to high-level operational oversight, to being a mentor and sounding board for the founders.
“The founders and the team impressed us with their vision, deep understanding of the Web3 world and strong passion for product excellence. They are relentless and we are excited to join them in this journey”, Georgiev added.
Eyeing Brazil’s digital market
The company plans to expand into the Brazilian market and grow its team internationally. “Brazil is a huge and growing economy, which is getting increasingly digitized. Telegram is vastly popular with 50%+ of the population using the platform. As such, it represents a ripe opportunity for advertisers and for Magfi to facilitate advertising placement”, shared Georgiev for The Recursive.
Magfi aims to bring the same level of the effectiveness of popular social media advertising platforms, but to the world of chat-based communities. On the questions of scalability in other platforms, besides Telegram and Discord, Georgiev clarified that “some platforms are centrally managed and have their own advertising platforms (e.g. Meta), which the so called open Web3 platforms like Telegram and Discord have distributed ownership, which results in very different dynamics.”
Telegram boasts nearly 1B users monthly, with users congregating in groups based on specific topics, while Discord has around 200M.
“Technically speaking, a great deal of Magfi’s infrastructure is portable to other platforms. However, some have substantial limitations – e.g. groups can have dozens or a few hundred people, vs. Telegram and Discord that can have tens of thousands and more.”
