Founded by Jesse Ahin Ghansah and Prince Boakye Boampong, a co-founder of Savannah Fund-backed BigX has launched OMG Digital, a BuzzFeed for Africa targeting the continents 250 million millennials with entertainment and lifestyle content.
First focused on Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya, OMGVoice has hit 3 million unique monthly readers just five months after it launched.Now being accelerated at Y Combinator’s class of 2016, Prince says OMG Digital is set to launch a food and tech vertical, and then expand into Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia and South Africa.
“A lot of African media companies are stuck in the past. They’re trying to recreate the print experience online,” says Jesse Ahin Ghansah, co-founder of OMG Digital. “When people go to those websites, they have a bad experience because the sites are not optimized for mobile. We’ve had mobile in mind since day one.”
In 2016, brands spent more than $3 billion online to reach young Africans, hoping to reap the rewards of the $1.3 trillion that the continent is projected to spend in 2020. That said, most brands aren’t connecting with the African audience effectively.
“The majority of millennials are on mobile. Brands that buy ads on websites are wasting a lot of money. They aren’t reaching the audience they want to reach.” says Prince Boakye Boampong, the co-founder of OMG Digital. “We help brands find their audience more effectively through content people engage with and enjoy.”
OMG Digital plans to launch a food and tech vertical, and expand to new countries including Tanzania, South Africa, Uganda, and Zambia by the end of the year.
“OMG Digital’s founders, Jessie and Prince, impressed us immediately with their knowledge, energy, and intelligence. Together, they had already built OMG into a media force in Africa in remarkably little time, and we have confidence they will go on to be a dominant player in a rapidly growing market. Funding these founders was a slam dunk for YC,” says Geoff Ralston, Partner at Y Combinator.
OMG Digital’s founders have worked together before, launching Africa’s first music streaming and download company, BigX, in 2006. BigX went on to reach over 30 million downloads.