Q&A: ‘Netflix for Africa’ Start-Up Wabona Taps Into Continent’s TV Craze

The online streaming space has been mentioned as of the tech trends in Africa to watchout for this year. The need for on-demand for African media content from consumers inside and out of the continent is growing at a tremendous speed.

The service, better known as ‘Netflix for Africa’, has seen new players such as Wabona,  an internet start-up that focuses on Sub-Saharan content, empowering content creators and facilitating a distribution platform for the African diaspora, gain a lot of traction from film and TV enthusiasts in the last few years.

AFKInsider spoke to founders Simbarashe Mabasha and Simukayi Makuna about Wabona’s  growth, competitors, challenges and future plans. We also talked to one of Wabona’s investors  Pule Taukobong, chairman and founder of Africa Angels Network, on the prospects he sees in this emerging tech market.

AFKInsider: What inspired you to start Wabona? Does it still inspire you now that the venture has taken off?

The journey to Wabona was an interesting one. We started out by building a production company as we are avid film and TV enthusiasts and were very much frustrated by the state of African motion picture storytelling. We found some big challenges in this venture and we pivoted and started Wabona in an effort to not only control distribution of our own content but that of others. The main inspiration for Wabona was the lack of sustainable distribution for African filmmakers and producers. We wanted to disrupt that space.

Wabona is like a growing child, each day you learn something new, be it a new challenge or a new victory. So we are still inspired on a daily basis by Wabona.

AFKInsider:  How did you manage to raise the initial funding to start Wabona?

We raised the initial funding from Angel Investors like Africa Angels Network, who continue to support us.

AFKInsider:  What is Wabona all about and how are you going to make money?

Wabona (Sotho for ‘You See’& pronounced Waa-Bo-Nah) is an online video streaming service. Wabona delivers African video content to markets in the Africa and African Diaspora.

Wabona provides an exciting service that is easy to use via the web and mobile devices. Wabona allows instant access to video-on-demand through a growing online video library with African TV shows, documentaries and films.

In essence Wabona is about providing classic and modern African TV, film and documentary entertainment on-demand, without schedule or expensive subscription fees. Wabona.com (web service) costs US$5.99 per month subscription. Cinemo, Wabona’s mobile service is a free Ad-supported service.

AFKInsider:  What were the main challenges setting up Wabona in South Africa? How did you overcome them?

The main challenges we faced focused mainly on getting people (market, investors, Telcos) to understand that video streaming is the future of video content distribution in South Africa, Africa and the world. The internet at times has been seen as a luxury for the upwardly mobile and thus expensive. The lack of internet infrastructure in Africa also lent a negative voice to our cause.

However, we were confident in the fact that the internet in Africa was improving, mobile broadband and 3G services were growing, devices were becoming cheaper and video streaming was disrupting content distribution outside Africa, led by Netflix.

We just waited a bit and everything we predicted happened. We positioned Wabona to capitalise on the fast changing space and those perceived obstacles became easier to tackle. We started in the African Diaspora as the problems particular to Africa, were not universal and thus we launched Wabona outside Africa. Once things begun to change in Africa we aggressively pursued a mobile solution for African users, which we did via Cinemo.

AFKInsider:  What’s does your client base look like and how do you expect it to grow/change in the next three to five years?

Wabona has over 430 000 users with a large concentration of that number found on our mobile service, Cinemo. We will continue to grow our mobile user base as mobile broadband penetration grows in Africa. But we will also have better access to fixed line internet users over the coming years.

In the foreseeable future we expect to see  a convergence of the internet and satellite and DTT infrastructure and services. Set Top Boxes will become ‘smart’ and thus users will have a better variety of access to linear TV channels and video-on-demand services like Wabona. Wabona is well positioned for this advancement with tests about to begin in this area and other exciting areas.

AFKInsider:  Any expansion plans? How will you finance such expansion plans?

None as of yet. Any expansion will be financed by private investment.

AFKInsider:  Do you think Other African firms such as iROKOtv in West Africa and BuniTV in East Africa will pose a stiff challenge to your business?

We believe there is room for about 4-5 players in the African VOD space and thus we welcome our competitors in other parts of the continent. It’s in the consumers’ best interest to have a variety of services to access. We strongly believe that competition will have an overall positive benefit for service providers and consumers alike.

AFKInsider:  ‘Netflix’ for Africa has been cited has the next trend to watch in Africa, do you think it will be as big as the mobile money wave that has swept the entire continent?

Video-on-demand is a fast growing space in the evolution of video distribution globally. This is the same in Africa. However, the key to its potential significant growth will be mobile. Mobile money worked because there were not many banks providing cost effective and innovative ways for Africans to pay, save and transfer money. This provided fertile ground for mobile money to grow.

The same can be said for African video entertainment. It’s currently somewhat outdated and stale. So services like Wabona are tasked with providing viable, innovative, fun and affordable services that give users the content they want, when they want and where they want.

AFKInsider to Pule: What made you decide to invest in Wabona? And how has it been as an investor in a new tech idea in South Africa?

The two main drivers that made me invest in Wabona were the team and the market opportunity. I strongly believe in the founders and their ability to take the business forward.

From a market opportunity perspective, we Africans need to have better access to our content and platforms like Wabona are well positioned to address this challenge.

In terms of how of the journey has been, it has been quite exciting . Exciting in the sense that I’m extremely encouraged by the user growth we are seeing in Wabona, especially via their mobile platform, which currently has more than 430 00 users.

AFKInsider to Pule: How do you see the South African tech scene changing in coming years? What should tech consumers be looking out for?

I believe the scene will be moving at a much faster pace towards mobile, like the rest of the continent. In fact, it often makes sense to start via mobile first, then via an online platform if need be.

Consumers should expect more epic innovation made right here and be on the lookout for it. They’ll be less need to go abroad.

Simultaneously though, the challenge lies in local startups being louder about the great work they are doing.