If you’re in the business of matching identities between brands and personalities, you also probably have no time to manage the nightmare that comes with finding the appropriate sponsor. But chill: there is now a way to avoid the worst headache of all.

Almost like online dating, but between sponsors and individuals / agents, this new website – it was only launched last Friday – pairs up the two and is called sponsorshop – gettit? Okay, let’s explain further:

sponsorshop is a digital ecosystem that connects prospective sponsors with the individuals, events, organisations and agencies that will most effectively deliver on their specific mutual objectives.

Built on a match-making principle, sponsorshop pairs individuals / organisations with corporate sponsors who are looking for certain profiles. And you can make your profile as attractive as you want:

If you consider the current way of seeking sponsorship (bombing marketing managers with email addresses that either bounce back or get lost in the thousands of similar emails) then you’ll know it’s pretty outdated. This is how sponsorshop works:

Registered users will be connected with their ideal sponsor, property or agency through the sponsorshop’s automatic match-making process.

Defined objectives (Sponsors) are paired with Opportunities (Rights Owners) and / or specialist services (Agencies) that align with what the sponsor is looking for within a stated tolerance level.

Rights Owners in turn will be notified of which Sponsor(s) could be potential partners based on their areas of interest, and offered the opportunity to connect in order to take the conversation further.

Agencies are able to identify the Rights Owners and Sponsors that would benefit from their area of speciality.

Pretty cool, huh? The only notifications that corporates will get are those from people who have signed up and have interests that align. But on another level of the monthly paid service gets the peeps behind sponsorhop to act as a channel, receiving all requests, evaluating, making recommendations and opening and closing the discussion. Easy as pie.

Did I mention it’s a South African startup?