The Loop

The Loop

The Loop, Australia's leading professional networking platform for the creative sector has relaunched ahead of expanding operations to the UK.

Sydney start-up The Loop is the brainchild of former MTV Executives Pip Jamieson & Matt Fayle, who identified a critical gap in creative industries networking and recruitment.

'We've seen creative businesses shy away from using platforms like SEEK to hire talent, as they're inundated with applications, most of which aren't relevant for the role" said Fayle. "This is in tandem with the slower take up of corporate networking site LinkedIn amongst the creative sector, due to its corporate focus and inability to showcase creative work via features such as dynamic multimedia portfolios"

Fayle & Jamieson's vision was to create a platform that was not only easy for creative professionals to promote themselves on, but equally as easy for businesses to search and hire top creative talent.

With this vision in mind, in 2009 Matt and Pip quit their dream jobs at MTV and started working from home, resigned themselves to a diet of tinned tuna and sunk their life savings into making The Loop a reality.

'We didn't want to simply be a portfolio site; we wanted to give our community real, tangible, professional and commercial benefits from having their portfolios on The Loop by landing them a perfect collaborator, job or client." said Jamieson

Matt added 'Our business model is highly disruptive to the existing creative industries recruitment market, by disintermediating recruitment agents and widening the creative talent pool."

Three years on The Loop is now Australia's leading professional networking site for creatives, with over 65% of all creative professionals in the region active users of the platform; 70% of which return each day. This highly engaged community has enabled them to attract over 7,000 + clients - including Google, MTV, the ABC, Animal Logic, Apple , Sydney Opera House and more – who use the platform to hire full time and freelance talent.

Last year The Loop raised $2 Million in seed funding, in an investment round lead by Roger Allen, and that investment has allowed the company to seize what they believe is a unique opportunity, with exceptional growth potential, in the UK. The Loop UK office opens in May 2013.

Jamieson says the relaunch, including a complete overhaul of design, usability and functionality, will be key to the success of the venture in the UK.

'If we want to compete on a world stage, and our vision is to become the leading platform for creative professionals globally, we need to have a world class look and feel".

Australia's creative professionals can connect to The Loop community via www.theloop.com.au

The Loop (www.theloop.com.au) is the market leading community portal for creative professionals and aims to better connect people working in the creativity industries with each other and commercial opportunity. The company has experienced 300% year on year revenue growth since launching in 2009. The site currently receives over 160,000 unique visitors each month, from Australians working across the spectrum of creative industries including advertising, design, digital, marketing, production, interior design, film and television.