Luiggi Pera feels “unleashed.”
That’s because his new Orlando-based business aims to innovate the world of affiliate marketing, as opposed to the heavily regulated investment sector he worked in with his last startup, Pera told Orlando Inno. “Working outside a regulated industry is nice… It’s nice to feel a little unleashed and build what you want to build.”
Pera was a founder of Orlando-based Miventure Inc., which developed an app and website to facilitate early-stage crowdfunding investment rounds for startups. Miventure last year was acquired by St. Paul, Minnesota-based Silicon Prairie Holdings Inc. for an undisclosed sum.
Following the acquisition, Pera and Denis Engel founded Jump Shops Inc. in September, signing the company’s first customer in December.
Jumping into affiliate marketing
Jump Shops is meant to help brands bolster their affiliate marketing, when a third-party affiliate is paid by brands to market their products. Affiliates often promote brands to their audience through promotional links that lead back to the brand’s website or discount codes, but Jump Shops goes further.
Jump Shops lets affiliates set up their own personalized online e-shops and promote their favorite products from the brand. Plus, brands can use Jump Shops to communicate with their affiliates and send them logos and illustrations for the website and social media. Meanwhile, the company makes money from a 3.5% fee on all transactions conducted through the e-shops.
The company has signed at least 10 clients, and it’s slowing down new customer onboarding because it can’t handle the demand, Pera said. Next, Jump Shops aims to close a fundraising round and launch on the Shopify app store, Pera added.
“We’re seeing this consistent feedback that our tool makes affiliates feel closer to the brand,” he said. “Our motto is we want to turn affiliates into your main sellers. That's what other affiliate marketing programs were missing.”
From the Big Apple to Orange County
Jump Shots is the second local startup Pera helped launch. He and fellow Miventure founder Jason Crystal in April 2020 moved their families from New York to Central Florida after a Google search for emerging fintech markets brought up Orlando.
Less than a year after their move to the Sunshine State, Miventure closed a $256,000 seed round led by Jacksonville-based JaxAngels LLC. SeedfundersOrlando LLC, Atlanta-based Johnson Venture Partners and St. Petersburg-based Seedfunders LLC also participated in the round.
Pera and Crystal both impressed Tyler Brown, a partner at Jacksonville-based Vertus Ventures LLC and a member of angel investor group JaxAngels. Brown was impressed with how knowledgeable the founders were in marketing and technology and how fast they worked, he previously told Orlando Inno. “For a startup, they move at lightspeed."
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