StarNews - Afrikan Heroes

Soccer Stars Join Forces with Venture Capital to Support Cameroon’s StarNews Mobile in $3M Round

November 1, 2023

African mobile video network, StarNews Mobile, recently secured a substantial pre-Series A funding round of $3 million. The investment in StarNews was made by various venture capital firms, including Janngo Capital, with notable participation from individual investors, including professional soccer players such as Aurélien Tchouaméni, Jules Koundé, and Mike Maignan, who are associated with the athlete representation agency Excellence Sport Nation. This financial injection serves to fuel the startup’s mission to support African content creators in monetizing their work through a subscription-based model.

Why the Investors Invested

Several compelling factors underpin the investors’ decision to fund StarNews Mobile. Firstly, the company leverages its strategic partnerships with African telecommunications giants, MTN and Orange, recognizing the invaluable role of mobile operators in propelling content within Africa’s media industry. This collaboration ensures access to an extensive user base while positioning StarNews as a prominent player in content distribution, monetization, and creation. In essence, investors recognize the strategic importance of these partnerships and the potential for exponential growth in the African content market.

Secondly, the impressive retention rate in Nigeria, one of StarNews’ primary markets, aligns with investors’ expectations for growth. Monetization metrics in Nigeria, measured by the billing rate, are three times higher compared to the Francophone markets. This signifies a favorable environment for generating revenue and making investments profitable. Additionally, StarNews distributed $1 million to content creators in the previous year, with an average monthly payout of approximately $70,000. Investors see this as a sign of a flourishing creator economy in Africa, which is still an underserved sector in the continent’s tech landscape. They believe that StarNews has the potential to significantly boost the region’s creative industry with the fresh capital injection.

A Look at StarNews Mobile

StarNews Mobile, founded by Guy Kamgaing in 2017, was inspired by his extensive decade-long experience in content monetization, particularly in Value-Added Services (VAS). During this period, he actively engaged in text/SMS-based campaigns and monetization initiatives, which laid the foundation for StarNews. This startup prioritizes offering monetization avenues for African content creators by forming distribution partnerships with major telecommunications operators.

StarNews Mobile’s primary markets include Cameroon (where it originated), Nigeria, Ghana, Congo, Benin, Ivory Coast, and Nigeria. The startup stands out for its commitment to assisting content creators in navigating the challenges of revenue generation in a landscape marked by expensive mobile data plans and a shortage of local market-tailored services.

The company collaborates with telecommunications operators like MTN and Orange, boasting a subscriber base of over 4 million across the aforementioned markets and featuring more than 120 content creators. It operates on a channel-based structure, where each creator has a dedicated channel. StarNews actively supports creators by providing financial assistance, aiding in content production, and guiding them through their digital journey.

In addition to individual content, StarNews features hyperlocal content on various topics, including motorbike taxis in Cameroon and food recipes in Ivory Coast. It also hosts genre-specific shows like the African Cup of Nations and a program modeled after The Voice. StarNews actively utilizes its partnerships with telecom operators to boost user activations and content awareness. The company’s goal is to expand further into markets, with the aim of being present in 11 markets in the coming year.

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Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard

Newly Funded Cameroonian Media Startup StarNews Enters Nigeria, Launches Incubator In South Africa

February 5, 2021

On December 10, 2020, the StarNews platform raised $1.8 million, including $1 million from Investisseurs & Partenaires (I&P), a specialist in impact investing. This fundraising was aimed at positioning the startup in the English-speaking regions of Africa.

“We are already present in South Africa and we have just arrived in Nigeria. We are in the process of establishing ourselves in Ghana and we will be in Kenya soon. By the end of 2021, we will be present in 6 new countries. We plan to double the number of channels and the number of our subscribers. Nigeria alone represents 3 times the size of the market in which we were present! We plan to raise new funds at the end of the year, because our objective is to raise between 30 and 40 million dollars by the end of 2023,” said CEO and founder Guy Kamgaing.

Guy Kamgaing, fondateur et PDG de StarNews. — *Guy Kamgaing, Founder and CEO of StarNews. (Credit: GK)*

StarNews has now, also, entered into a partnership deal with Solutions on Point, a 360 degree marketing agency based in South Africa. The goal of their collaboration is the establishment of a Youth Initiative incubator, geared towards empowering young people interested in the digital film industry. The startup has equally announced it had entered the Nigerian market.

As part of the South African initiative, young innovators will be offered mentoring, entrepreneurship guidance and career opportunities. The challenge is to help them lift themselves out of poverty. The incubator serves as a springboard for people to come together, master new expertise and cultivate a thriving community.

A Look At What StarNews Does

Founded in 2017 in Cote D’ivoire, StarNews Mobile is the project of Cameroonian Guy Kamgaing who has over 20 years of experience in the mobile telecom industry.

“I started in January 2016, with $ 250,000 in equity to deploy the platform and carry out the first proof of concept,” said Kamgaing. “At the beginning of 2018, I raised $100,000 as part of a “Friends & Family Round”; and during the summer of 2019, I raised an additional 600,000 dollars from Business Angels based in California.”

The startup which is present in four countries, is a network of mobile video channels that allows celebrities and brands to monetize their fan bases in Africa, the world’s fastest growing mobile market. StarNews Mobile works with popular local and international stars such as Davido (Nigeria — 12.7M followers), Fally Ipupa (Congo — 3M followers) or Sauti Sol (Kenya — 2.2M followers) to create exclusive and addictive short videos that fans are eager to pay for.

The startup also allows creators to earn new income and advertisers to reach their target audiences. The startup claims to have 5 million subscribers already. To date, the company has also around 40 employees spread across Canada, the United States, India, France and Africa.

Available in Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Congo and South Africa, StarNews is working with large pan-African mobile operators such as MTN, Orange and MOOV in order to distribute exclusive and quality video content directly to users.

On what inspired him into toeing the startup line, Kamgaing had this to say:

“I grew up in Douala before coming to Paris for my studies. In 1995, I left France for the United States where I obtained an MBA from the University of California. I have stayed there ever since. I followed an engineering course before becoming an auditor at PwC. At that time, I was already attracted to entrepreneurship and I had the chance to work in consulting in new technologies and telecoms where my interest was born. From the beginning of the 2000s, the needs generated by the telecoms sector in Cameroon were considerable, especially in terms of equipment. I took the opportunity to get into entrepreneurship, with one foot on every continent. It was an exciting adventure that ended in 2006, when the Chinese arrived, with rock-bottom prices. Some time later, the arrival of 4G raised new expectations and new needs for value-added services, especially in the area of videos.”

On the idea of StarNews, he further added:

“…as early as 2012, I decided to focus on Africa when I lived in Los Angeles, the “city” of media par excellence. The contrast between my life in the United States and my life in Africa, where I returned regularly, allowed me to measure the potential of Cameroon where a lot still has to be done, in terms of local content. I embarked on different activities which have worked quite well. So when 4G came to Africa, I was ready.”

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer

StarNews Nigeria StarNews Nigeria

Ivorian StarNews Mobile Passes 5 Million Subscriber Mark

September 5, 2020

The Ivorian based video on demand (VoD) startup StarNews Mobile has announced that its subscriber base has surpassed five million marks. StarNews which helps connect users with their favourite celebrities targets the mass market with a network of over 50 mobile channels offering celebrity-based content priced at low daily subscription rates.

Users can subscribe to their favourite celebrities’ channel through their operator for as low as US$0.10 per day. Once subscribed, they receive a video link via SMS to watch exclusive videos daily. The revenue generated from the subscription fee is then shared between the operator, the content provider and StarNews Mobile.

The startup deployed in Ivory Coast in partnership with operators MTN and Moov, and broke the one million subscriber mark back in April 2018. Since then it has launched in Cameroon, the Republic of Congo and South Africa, with a Nigeria rollout taking place soon.

Now the startup, which last year took part in the World Bank’s L’Afrique Excelle accelerator, has announced it has passed the five million subscriber mark. Its user base is growing by 23 per cent per quarter, and revenues are growing by 10 per cent over the same period.

“We are truly humbled that StarNews is resonating with millions of happy customers in Africa, and believe this bodes well for our continued expansion throughout Anglophone Africa later this year,” said founder Guy Kamgaing. Aside from Nigeria, StarNew is targeting 20 extra markets in total through its MTN partnership.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry