Letsile Tebogo wins Botswana’s first ever gold medal at the Paris Olympics

© Ben STANSALL / AFP

Hello everyone,

☀️ I am back after taking some time away from Linkedin over the summer.

So what did we miss? Quite a lot, turns out, including some key transactions  in film, music, and beauty.

🗼🥇There was, also, the Olympics, which showed us two things: one, that uplifting sports content might well be the most engaging content of all, and second, that there would be much, much to gain from investing in and supporting African athletes. 

Thankfully, some investors are now getting into formation to do just that.

Read on for more, in this special Back to School edition of HUSTLE & FLOW 👇

FILM

🎬 When highly respected former FilmOne MD Moses Babatope left the company he co-founded in March this year, the African film industry was less interested by the corporate drama at play than by Moses’ next move.

The cat is now out of the bag: Moses’ new venture is called Nile Media Entertainment Group (Moses, the Nile - get it?), and it aims to position itself as a market leader right off the bat.

😎 The launch announcement bore Moses’ signature golden touch for marketing:

• A presence in each segment of the film value chain, with five subsidiaries: Nile Entertainment (distribution), Nile Cinemas and Nile X (exhibition), Nile Motion Pictures (content production), Nile Studio Lab (premium content production), and The Nile Foundation (community development)

• A strong team of experienced female executives

• A bunch of deals already signed, such as the acquisition of distribution rights for 31 films, including Omoni Oboli’s “Wives on Strike 3”, and two cinema management deals 

• Solid partnerships, including one with media mogul Mo Abudu to launch luxury cinemas called “The Pods” 

As he strikes out on his own (albeit well surrounded), Moses benefits from a lot of industry goodwill. Nile will certainly be a company to watch.

🌴The Durban Film Festival took place in July as usual, and this year’s edition buzzed with the launch of a few new funding initiatives, riding on the coattails of Afreximbank’s much talked-about $1 billion African film fund.

Frédéric Fiore from Logical Pictures Group was there promoting its new Logical Picture Africa fund, a smartly positioned venture aiming to bridge the gap between large institutional funds and smaller budget projects. I talked about it in the previous edition of HUSTLE & FLOW - head over there for more details.

New on the African film finance scene are initiatives by veteran US talent agent Dana Sims and producer Erica Grayson, who will focus on commercially driven movies with Africans for a global audience, and a partnership between Kathleen Burke and Beverley Mitchell's Rare Bird Studios and Paris-based Betty Sulty-Johnson’s Habebo Studios targeting pan-African, diasporic, and international content.

⚠️ This is all well and good, but it doesn’t solve the most pressing problem faced by African producers: the lack of actual buyers for their content.

Indeed, besides Netflix and Canal+Multichoice, there’s not much out there. The African free-to-air broadcast industry hides some big opportunities, but is so chaotic that it has so far proven a graveyard for investors (RIP Kwese).

📱In a future edition, I’ll talk about how some producers are circumventing the problem entirely by going straight to YouTube, even with premium content.

CREATOR ECONOMY

💡In 2016, Paystack’s founding team member Douglas Kendyson launched Selar, after noticing a need for a marketplace to sell creative digital products like ebooks and online courses.

💲Kendyson iterated on his passion project for four years, self-funding Selar while working at Flutterwave and startups in Dubai. Selar progressively integrated with PayPal, Stripe, Paystack, and MPesa to simplify payments. It also developed features like tips and donations through its Show Love product, accepting over 11 currencies.

During all this time, Kendyson opted not to raise external capital.

💥And then in 2023, he quietly announced that Selar creators’ annual revenue had reached ₦4 billion ($4.4 million) on the platform — double the previous year’s earnings. Selar itself makes money through commissions, SaaS subscriptions, and forex spreads.

Today the platform counts 21 team members, servicing 200,000 creators and 20,000 affiliates. Already used by creators in some 15 countries, it is now officially expanding to Kenya.

The story of Selar is one of my favorites in the Creative Industries. Selar is a product that responds to a real need, leverages its founder’s particular expertise (in this case, digital payments), made money from the first transaction, and grew organically at a sustainable pace. Selar is good. Be like Selar.

📢 In another good news for Kenyan creators, TikTok is rolling out its advertising platform in the country, a major step towards enabling monetization in Kenya.

While not all business accounts have access yet, brands like Infinix, Itel, Tecno, Oraimo, MESH, and Glovo have been able to test out TikTok ads in Kenya - sparking optimism for smaller businesses eager to tap into creative short-video ads without hefty budgets.

Although creators are not able to receive payments yet, this move signals TikTok’s commitment to a full launch in Kenya.

💰Currently, TikTok only offers monetization in South Africa, and my sources tell me that even there, things are not very smooth yet. The popularity of the Chinese social network across the continent means that, once it gets it right, the earning potential for creators is enormous. TikTok, TikTok, we are waiting.

MUSIC

🎟️ US ticketing giant Ticketmaster has acquired Quicket, a 13-year-old Cape Town-based ticketing company, in a strategic move to expand its footprint across Africa. 

This acquisition, though undisclosed in financial terms, is set to leverage Quicket’s local expertise in countries including Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, and Zambia.

🎪Ticketmaster, which is owned by Live Nation, began operations in South Africa in 2022 and has already been serving some of the country's top festivals, sports, music, theater, and venue clients. 

By teaming up with Quicket’s self-service platform and event organizer tools, Ticketmaster will now be able to offer solutions for events of all sizes, from small clubs to large festivals and stadiums, across the continent.

🤝 While Quicket will continue as a standalone business unit from Cape Town, it will benefit from Ticketmaster’s global presence and technological capabilities, such as secure encrypted mobile tickets. 

With the increasing importance of live performance in the music industry's revenue, there's been a significant push to build out local live industry infrastructure in Africa. This means developing solid ticketing solutions.

Other companies tackling the same challenge/opportunity include Kenya’s HustleSasa, which powers various events in East Africa and Ghana. Move Afrika’s producer Global Citizen has also announced plans for a pan-African platform that would streamline tour planning for international and African artists by solving the current fragmented model.

BEAUTY

🧴Kenyan skincare marketplace Uncover has raised $1.4 million in seed funding to expand into the US, Ghana, and Uganda. 

Founded in 2021 by Sneha Mehta and Jade Oyateru, Uncover leverages user data from its app to create personalized skincare products through labs in South Korea, aka the world’s beauty HQ. 

These customized products are then distributed via Uncover’s e-commerce platform and retail partnerships with pharmaceutical chains like Goodlife and Medplus in Kenya and Nigeria.

🚀The startup says it currently has over 200,000 users across these two countries and the diaspora, with a revenue growth of 10x over the past 24 months. It recently broke even and is moving towards profitability.

"The industry has represented only a few skin tones in testing, and we are one of the first brands testing on women in Africa. What’s exciting is that we are starting in Africa but seeing global demand and opportunity for our solution," said Sneha Mehta, CEO of Uncover.

This latest funding marks Uncover's third funding round, following a $100,000 pre-seed from Antler VC in 2021 and a $1 million seed round in 2022. It was led by EQ2 Ventures and IgniteXL Ventures, with participation from Chui Ventures, Samata Capital, and Altree Capital. 

INVESTMENT

Announced at the height of the summer, this news did not get any press - and yet this is a partnership that could be truly transformative:

💪 The International Finance Corporation (IFC), Proparco and private equity firm Helios’ new Sports & Entertainment Group (HSEG) have come together in a strategic alliance to explore joint investment opportunities in African sports and entertainment, with a focus on projects or companies that can stimulate economic growth, create jobs, and enhance ancillary sectors like tourism, real estate, and media.

💰💰💰IFC and Proparco are among the largest private-sector focused development finance institutions active in Africa. Meanwhile Helios, which was founded in 2004 by Tope Lawani and Babatunde Soyoye, has since become the world’s largest Africa-focused private investment firm with $3 billion under management.

🏀Helios started developing their sports and entertainment strategy in 2021, with an initial investment in NBA Africa, before officially setting up its dedicated entity HSEG. 

🎤 Since then, HSEG has taken equity stakes in The Malachite Group, the company which owns and manages the Afro Nation brand (previously controlled by Event Horizon, also a Helios portfolio company), and Zaria Group, a developer of mixed-used sports, entertainment and recreation properties in major urban centers in Africa. And just a couple months ago, HSEG backed the launch of the African division of the Professional Fighters League (PFL) - more on this below.

With HSEG leading the way, we can expect the consortium of heavyweights to focus on premium brands and properties, and ambitious infrastructure plays, including green field ventures.

SPORTS BUSINESS

🥊Talking about heavyweights, investment from HSEG is now turning the highly anticipated launch of PFL Africa into reality.

Created in 2018, PFL is generally considered the number 2 MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) league in the world, after UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship).

Cameroonian star fighter and current PFL athlete Francis Ngannou will serve as Chairman of PFL Africa.

🤼Ngannou, a former UFC heavyweight champion, famously left UFC last year following disputes over pay and independence. He quickly joined PFL under more beneficial terms and the promise to help develop the league on the continent.

With many African fighters - such as Israel Adesanya and Kamaru Usman - outperforming in the sport, the potential of African MMA is obvious, both in terms of unearthing new champions and as a new market for digital MMA content.

PFL Africa is set to kick off in Q2 2025 and aims to position itself as ‘Africa’s most accessible sports league’. Its distribution strategy will cut across linear, digital and mobile platforms, with all events to be hosted on the continent and also available via regional media partners.

🏃‍♂️Silverbacks Holdings has made a strategic investment in South Africa's NERGii. The Cape Town-based company offers innovative products for athletes, including advanced performance-enhancing shoe innersoles which serve as a biological wearable battery to boost energy.

This investment aligns with Silverbacks Holdings' strategy to support the growing sports sector. Silverback’s sports portfolio also includes BAL quarterfinalists Cape Town Tigers.

⚽ And finally, Nigerian Afrobeat star Burna Boy is following other prominent Nigerians into the wild world of Nigerian football by launching the Burna Boy Football Academy.

The new initiative, which aims to nurture young African talent (aged 4-15 and 16-21) by combining football fundamentals with education and discipline, will prepare players for success beyond the sport through its training centers in Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt. 

💫 Leveraging Burna Boy’s global network and influence, the new Academy has already partnered with top-tier clubs like Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur, Leicester City, Brighton, Watford, and Scottish clubs Hearts and Hamilton.