Naspers and Tencent-owned WeChat Africa has invested in South African microjobbing platform M4JAM, which launched on the WeChat platform in August of last year.
M4JAM takes big jobs from reputable companies and breaks them into smaller jobs, allowing users to complete simple tasks using their phones in exchange for cash. Clients include WeChat and TomTom.
The investment will allow M4JAM to scale locally and expand globally.
“Its disruptive business model has turned ‘business as usual’ on its head from both the end consumer and the brand’s perspective, resulting in a rapid and overwhelming demand from both users and companies to be on the M4JAM platform,” said Brett Loubser, managing director of WeChat Africa.
Andre Hugo, co-founder of M4JAM, said the platform enables companies to rapidly gather data, perform mystery shopping, manage merchandising audits, improve product education and promote brand activation whilst soliciting real consumer insights more affordably.
“With the opportunity to earn extra cash and supplement their incomes, our jobbers are strongly invested in the platform, providing more authentic information than ever before and begging the question of other brands – can we afford not to be on-board?” he said.
“WeChat’s investment allows us to focus on building our business while they provide the community that helps enable our success. We launched M4JAM on WeChat because the social communications app offers a fast and easy deployment platform.”
Loubser said WeChat was on a path to deliver value for users via multiple official accounts such as M4JAM.
“We’re supporting their growth to demonstrate that through the right partnerships, WeChat can deliver value, not only for users but for brands as well. We have several other startups launching on the platform this year that will help us show the true power of an integrated mobile social platform,” he said.
