The Unmakers: Chris Wirasinha on how Linkby is helping publishers rework the affiliate marketing game

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade. Today, we talk to the creator of Australian media’s most enduring youth media brand, Pedestrian TV cofounder Chris Wirasinha, as he begins to scale up his new venture Linkby. And also in this post, the Unmade Index wipeout has stretched into another week, particularly for audio stocks.If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, this is the perfect time. Your membership includes:* Member-only pricing for our HumAIn and REmade (October 1) conferences;* A complimentary invitation to Unmade’s Compass event (November);* Member-only content and our paywalled archives;* Your own copy of Media Unmade‘It felt like everybody was getting paid but us’ Linkby’s Chris Wirasinha on helping publishers monetise their linksIn today’s episode of The Unmakers we talk to Chris Wirasinha about his latest venture in the publishing world, Linkby.Like several entrepreneurs who came out of the media and marketing world, Wirasinha has spotted a more scalable tech opportunity as a supplier to his old ecosystem. Just as Matt Farrugia and Henry Innis broke out of WPP to start media mix modelling system Mutinex, and Ben Gunn and Nathan Powell left Nine to start influencer platform Fabulate, Wirasinha is doing the same thing in the space between affiliate marketing and PR.This week, Linkby announced its third round of venture capital funding - a $4m Series A round, to grow its teams in the US, UK and Australia.Linkby provides a new way for publishers to be paid by brands for links in editorial content.During the conversation with Unmade’s Tim Burrowes, Wirasinha reveals that Linkby is seeing $30m of marketing spend pass through its pipes, meaning that based on its 30% commission, the company is hitting annualised revenue approaching $10m.As well as discussing the Linkby model, why he came together with his Linkby cofounders and the factors behind choosing a VC-funded path, Wirasinha reflects on how he and Oscar Martin achieved a big number exit from Pedestrian, and the current state of the media market. Hear more about how the founders of Pedestrian TV exited to Nine:Nine lifts the Unmade IndexA better performance by Nine helped lift the whole Unmade Index on Wednesday, despite another tough day for several stocks.Nine lifted by 1.8%, taking its market capitalisation back above $2.2bn. The Unmade Index followed, rising by 0.76% to 476.2 points.It was a bad day for the major audio stocks, with Southern Cross Austereo falling below a $150m market cap for the first time in its history after losing another 3.85%. ARN Media lost nearly 1.5%. Both stocks have lost more than 20% of their valuation over the last month alone.Meanwhile, Seven West Media lost 2.9% to return to its lowest point since 2020.Today’s podcast was edited by the excellent people at Abe’s Audio.Time to leave you to your Thursday. We’ll be back with more tomorrow.Have a great day.Toodlepip…Tim BurrowesPublisher - [email protected] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit unmade.substack.com