88mph-backed gossip and entertainment news site Ghafla Kenya has been acquired by Ringier Africa for an undisclosed amount and will join the firm’s content platforms such as Pulse.ng as the Swiss firm tries to reinvent itself in Africa.
Ghafla will see Ringier Africa push its other digital platforms such as Rupu deals just as it’s been done with Tisu in Ghana and DealDey in Nigeria. Ringier’s love for entertainment content stems from its over 100 year history running the world’s biggest print empire now being moved into digital platforms such as classifieds, deals and news content.
Ghafla will be part of Ringier Africa and will use digital agency dubbed Ringier Digital Marketing to sign up ad deals.
Early this year, Ringier Africa signed a deal with South Africa’s Silvertree Holdings to form Ringier Africa Deals Group which recently acquired Nigeria’s DealDey which also comprise of the couponing platform Promohub and discovery platform Lyf, both forming part of the acquisition.
In 2011, DealDey raised about $1 million from Swedish investment firm Kinnevik. This was followed up by another $5 million investment in series B financing in 2015. Ghafla on its part claims to have raised just $25,000 seed funding from 88mph, a Pan-African early stage investor fund with investments in firms across Africa but with a core focus on Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya. This is 88mph‘s first Kenyan exit.
Though the financial details of the Ghafla-Ringier deal are yet to be made public, sources say they are between $300k to $600k after tax but others argue Ghafla is worth 2x to 5x that value. Our friends at TechWeez report the deal to have been around $300k. Ghafla claims to earn monthly revenues north of $50k a month or roughly $600k annually. To makeout of this exit, 88mph might need to cash in 5x or even more, but that’s private information. With RDM, Ghafla will quickly become Ringier Africa’s new cash cow as it also helps to push its classifieds and deals platforms.
To read more about Ghafla’s journey to where it’s now-this feature here has most of the firm’s history.
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