Seeing the business potential of social media very early on, Joe Gagliese and his business partner, Mathew Micheli, founded Viral Nation in 2014, becoming one of the first dedicated agencies in the field of influencer marketing. Together, the two business partners painstakingly built one of the world’s most diverse and powerful platforms for influencer marketing, developing deals with over 10,000 social influencers from around the world.

Five years later, Viral Nation has managed to scale its business a remarkable 300%-400% year over year, with no outside investment. Along the way, the agency has expanded to include an award-winning creative team and a full suite of modern marketing services including experiential marketing, content marketing, paid media, social strategy, community management, and more.

Today, with established pathways into almost every vertical, geography and demographic, Viral Nation has helped some of the world’s biggest and most recognizable brands unleash the power of online marketing to grow their audience of loyal advocates and discover new fans. – brands such as Victoria’s Secret, Aston Martin, Lowes, Energizer, Twitch, Ubisoft, Tencent, Wish, Scotiabank, Viewsonic, and Match.com.

The industry has taken notice. This year, Viral Nation was ranked #15 in the Adweek 100: Fastest Growing Agencies list (the highest-ranked Canadian company), and very recently Gagliese and Micheli were honored as this year’s EY Young Entrepreneurs of the Year 2019 for the Ontario region. These accolades come alongside numerous other wins in 2019, including Macleans’ “Startup 50: Canada’s Top New Growth Companies 2019” list, “Best Large Influencer Marketing Agency” by the 2019 Influencer Marketing Awards, the Chief Marketer 200 “Top Marketing Agencies of 2019”, and four 2019 AVA Digital Award wins.

Now recognized leaders in their field, Gagliese and Micheli have been quoted by CNN, CNBC, Adweek, Vanity Fair, Inc. Magazine, and elsewhere, and both frequently speak at conferences and events around the world. Not bad, before 30 years old.