iflix, Southeast Asia’s subscription video streaming service has raised over $50m in a new round of investment to drive growth ahead of a prospective IPO.
The round of funding was led by Fidelity International with participation from Indonesia’s MNC, Japan’s Yoshimoto Kogyo, and South Korea’s JTBC in addition to iflix founders Catcha Group, and strategic shareholders Hearst, Sky and EMC.
Whilst the final size of the round has not been disclosed, the total is well in excess of US$50 million.
The successful funding round provides iflix with significant firepower to aggressively pursue growth strategies and further increase the active userbase which surpassed 17 million in May 2019, up from 9 million six months earlier.
In a statement, iflix Co-Founder and Chairman, Patrick Grove, said, “We are incredibly proud to have Fidelity International cornerstone this latest round of funding, along with investments from all our major shareholders and some of the region’s most significant media companies. These investments are a clear affirmation of iflix’s business model and growth prospects, and strengthens our ties to some of the region’s largest providers of local content.”
The firm, which sold off its pan-African business to Kwese, says it has a strong pipeline of new content and is excited to be making its most extensive ever content offering available to its millions of users across the region.
iflix faced much competition from Netflix, Naspers Showmax and Amazon’s Prime Video in Africa until it saw no business sense of operating here. The firm is looking at an IPO as a safe route out of the woods but it will take a longer time for its investors to earn any returns in SVOD business as global firms compete for users.