Investors give OMG Digital US$1.1m seed fund
Ghanaian tech startup, OMG Digital, has secured a US$1.1 million seed fund from six international investors – Kima Ventures, Soma Capital, Comcast Ventures Catalyst Fund, Social Capital, M&Y Growth Partners and Macro Ventures and some angel investors.
Advertisement
The angel investors included Mr Josh Buckley of Mino Games and Founder of Off-Grid Electric, Mr Francis Xavier Helgesen. The Y-Combinator - backed new media company targeting Africa’s millennial population through shareable and hyper-local pop-culture content, has been dubbed the ‘Buzzfeed of Africa’ with its OMGVoice brand.
It has monthly aggregated content views of over 90 million, a monthly social reach of 80 million, with 4.5 million readers to the website each month since its launch in February 2016.
Currently operating in Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya, the 25-strong team, create and curate listicles, pictorials, videos and memes that are tailored to specific African countries and cultures. Reflecting the diverse interests of the over 250 million African millennials on the continent, article topics range from ‘6 Badass Warriors From Ghana you should know off’ and ‘The Most Ridiculous Nigerian Food Myths,’ to more serious news such as Ghana, Kenya and Malawi being chosen to pilot the world's first Malaria vaccine in 2018.
The online platform also produces video content focused on culture and hyper-local recipes via their culinary brand, Servepot.
It is on the verge of launching two new verticals focused on lifestyle and technology.
Why the focus
Millennials make up more than a third of the continent’s population. They are the most connected generation with a strong affinity to mobile technology and social media usage.
About 90 per cent of OMG’s subscribers visit from a mobile [predominantly android] device.
Other Trending Stories
On why they chose to invest in OMG Digital, the Head of Investing at Comcast’s Catalyst Fund, Kai Bond, said “OMG Digital have created a truly unique publishing brand through their deep understanding of Africa’s exploding digital media space.
“Catalyst Fund looks forward to helping this team to continue to grow as they scale on such a super-diverse continent,” he added.
Founded by Jesse Arhin Ghansah, Prince Boakye Boampong and Dominic Mensah, the company will use this investment to continue to dominate the social feeds of millennials across the continent by setting up company offices in Accra, Lagos and Nairobi.
This should grow their advertising and marketing operations and allow them to invest in producing more video content.— GB