Springleap offers marketers access to a global community of creative professionals — about 180,000 — who provide on-the-ground insights to improve ads and social strategy. The company is shifting from crowdsourced design contests toward research delivered by small, selected "creative panels" of brand strategists. Springleap positions this work as more actionable than traditional consumer panels and has been described by its founder as a "TaskRabbit for research." Creative contributors can earn roughly $40–$350 per hour depending on experience and market. The company highlights client success stories, including work for Adidas. Springleap began in South Africa; its founder Eran Eyal is now based in New York City and the company is looking to expand in the United States. Its current reported backing totals around $1.1 million after a recent seed extension. Springleap began in 2007 as a design-competition site for T-shirt designs and has expanded into a crowdsourced platform that lets brands post competitions and receive multiple creative submissions. The company operates from offices in Johannesburg and Cape Town and has set up a global headquarters in Brooklyn. Clients named in coverage include Samsung, SAB, Nestle, Kraft and Ogilvy. Springleap says it is broadening its vision beyond contests toward analytics and research to institutionalize agency-class creative thinking. The company has won awards including the United Nations World Summit Award, MentorCamp Global Finals recognition, and a Microsoft presenter accolade. Financially, Springleap completed an initial $400,000 round, reports a $3 million sales pipeline, and is currently raising a larger follow-on round.

Total raised

$1M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Seed

Latest activity

Mar 2015