L to R: Todd Christopher, Femi Olagbaiye (Senior Advisor) and Isaac Flattau.
EXCLUSIVE: Gersh Agency bosses have backed a new African streamer with a seven-figure investment.
The Streamline Content mobile-first free SVoD will roll out across Sub-Saharan Africa shortly, combining local content with Hollywood fare in seven FAST and several VoD channels. It will have more than 15,000 hours worth of licensed content in genres ranging from scripted to documentaries to features to e-sports.
Gersh bosses Bob and David Gersh have invested a seven-figure sum in Streamline and taken an ownership stake as individuals, while longtime Gersh partner Todd Christopher is a co-founder. The streamer has also struck a strategic distribution partnership with Ayoba, an African platform that says it has more than 30 million monthly active users.
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Streamline has offices in LA and New York and will soon open in South Africa and Nigeria. The vast majority of future hires will be African nationals, it said, positing an ambition to “create an exchange of creativity and skills between American and African artists.”
The outfit is seeking further expansion in the near future and will look to develop mobile-first streamers in other regions such as the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Latin America. Africa’s population is one of the youngest in the world and Deadline’s recent Mipcom analysis stressed the immense popularity of mobile-first streaming. Netflix, Disney, Amazon and Canal+ are all currently battling it out for eyeballs in the continent with local players.
Gersh’s Christopher said Streamline will “facilitate a meaningful entertainment economy by bringing premium sports and entertainment programing to the African continent that not only benefits our viewers but also shines a global spotlight on African talent, filmmakers and creators.”
Ayoba’s CEO Burak Akinci said: “Streamline represents an innovative and important new partnership for ayoba. At ayoba, we showcase Africa at its best, and Streamline’s unique creation of a space for African and global talent to stand shoulder-to-shoulder is truly in keeping with our goals. We believe this partnership will develop into an extremely impactful and accessible content offering on the entire continent as we continue to attract millions of new users every month.”
Isaac Flattau, another co-founder who used to be a lawyer for victims at the International Criminal Court, added: “What we’re doing is long overdue in Hollywood: taking Africans seriously as producers and consumers of world-class content. We’re building a platform curated for them, and a bridge for Hollywood to meaningfully enter African markets.”
The news comes with Gersh in the process of acquiring the unscripted and digital departments of rival agency A3, which could be slowed by legal action brought against A3 chairman Adam Bold.
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