Afrigator, a multimedia meme tracking site aggregating African blogs, podcasts and video, has been acquired by South African conglomerate MIH Group/Naspers. We gave Afrigator a positive review nine months ago and CNN’s Business 2.0 called it one of 31 companies to watch outside the US last year. (Warning: Insipid, traditional media, ad-ridden “slide show” behind that CNN link.)
The Afrigator interface, algorithm and user experience were key in driving the kind of growth that made it an interesting acquisition target. We haven’t been able to get any details on the record about the price paid but suffice it to say that Afrigator’s founders and angel investors have all been well rewarded.
First coverage of the deal came from Africa tech 2.0 watcher Charl Norman, who puts Afrigator’s acquisition in context with other recent deals in the region.
If you’re unfamiliar with the blogging scene in Africa, Afrigator is a good place to discover top blogs there like The Mail & Guardian’s Thought Leader, the occasionally prurient tech blog iMod, the very politicized Black Looks and the internationally minded Afromusing.
We’d like to offer our congratulations to the Afrigator team and to the African blogosphere, whose work has been recognized by a large traditional company as important enough to warrant a significant acquisition in that space. Such recognition isn’t the most important thing in the world, the social media world has plenty of its own inherent worth, but such validation is nice too, even for people beyond the founding team. We assume that Afrigator will expand its operations significantly with this infusion of support.
