Big investment allows ANA to expand
THE African News Agency (ANA), the continent’s first content syndication service and social media platform for text, pictures and videos, has raised $80 million (R104m) from China, the US and the Middle East.
With this investment, ANA has in total raised $165m since its inception in 2015, the entity raised $30m and last year $55m.
The total has resulted in 15% of the shareholding now held by international investors and 85% of shares belonging to the Sekunjalo Group.
ANA president Arthur Mutambara said he was delighted at the third tranche of investment. It was a sign of confidence, firstly in an African company, but mostly in the technology platforms, which led to ANA exceeding its first milestone three months ago of reaching one billion users, he said. It would use the funds to ensure that by 2020 it became the eminent content provider for African content distributed globally.
Mutambara said: “Technology is the great equaliser. The ANA multimedia technology platform will revolutionise the way Africans communicate among themselves, re-brand the continent and ignite economic development.”
ANA intends to set up commercial media bureaux in New York, London, Shanghai and Dubai, allowing it to continue penetrating global audiences, and furthering its strategy to becoming the go-to source for news, information and data about Africa.
ANA chief executive officer Grant Fredericks said ANA had achieved its second strategic milestone, enabling technology-driven social media platforms for text, pictures and videos.
ANA is headquartered in South Africa.