A young Moroccan tech startup is trying to bring order to influencer marketing, a sector that still works in a very informal way.
Based in Casablanca, the platform HYPEO wants to change how brands and content creators work together. It uses artificial intelligence and data analysis to make influencer campaigns easier to manage and measure.
The startup was founded by Meriam Bessa and Salah Eddine Mimouni. Their idea is simple: make influencer marketing work more like traditional advertising, where results can be clearly tracked.
The idea came from experience. Since 2016, Ms Bessa had been running influencer campaigns through her digital marketing agency. She often found the process messy and fragmented. Campaigns were managed with spreadsheets, long WhatsApp conversations and influencer choices that were sometimes based more on instinct than real data.
That experience pushed the founders to build HYPEO. After more than a year of research and development, they created a platform that brings the whole process into one place. Brands can launch a campaign online in just a few minutes, from writing the brief to choosing creators and tracking results.
The system uses artificial intelligence to match brands with the right creators. It looks at around 15 different factors, combining numbers and qualitative elements. These include how well creators actually perform, their credibility, how closely they match a brand and whether their content style fits the campaign.
The goal is to move away from simple metrics like follower counts or engagement rates and instead rely on a more complete analysis of data.
HYPEO says it has already built a database of more than 60,000 Moroccan influencers, something it describes as unique in the local market. The startup has started onboarding its first clients and is preparing a new round of funding to speed up its growth.
Several international investors are already supporting the project, including Madica, Renew Capital and Digital Africa.
The company is also looking beyond Morocco. Its long-term goal is to expand across Africa and the Middle East.
More broadly, HYPEO is part of a global shift in marketing technology. Influencer marketing is becoming an increasingly important channel for brands, but many markets still lack the tools to manage campaigns properly. The Moroccan startup hopes its platform can help fill that gap as digital growth continues to accelerate across the region.
