Anghami Inc, the leading music streaming platform and service in the Middle East and North Africa, and Vistas Media Acquisition Company Inc. (NASDAQ: VMAC), a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company, announced on Wednesday that they have entered into a definitive merger agreement that will result in Anghami becoming the first Arab technology company to list on NASDAQ. The transaction, which is expected to close in the second quarter of 2021, implies a pro-forma enterprise value of $220 million. The combined company will operate under the Anghami name and will trade under the new symbol “ANGH”. Founded in 2012, by Eddy Maroun and Elie Habib, Anghami is the first music-streaming platform in the MENA region, offering more than 57 million songs to more than 70 million registered users with around 1 billion streams per month. With an Arabic speaking population of over 450 million globally, a listing on NASDAQ allows Anghami to scale its user base and invest in technology to build on its data play, the company said in a statement. It added that Anghami's AI and machine learning algorithms process over 56 million data points from its user base every day. “Over nine years of user data enables the company to predict user behavior and trends to focus its investments in areas delivering the highest return on investment — which helps improve monetization — and will continue to be a key driver of revenues going forward,” according to the statement. The company has long standing partnerships with all major global labels, including Universal Music Group, Sony Music, and Warner Music Group. Anghami is a music app and platform that offers listeners in the MENA region unlimited Arabic and international music to stream and download. The company is headquartered in Abu Dhabi, at the Abu Dhabi Global Market, and has offices in Beirut, Dubai, Cairo, and Riyadh. It is supported by the Abu Dhabi Investment Office, the Abu Dhabi government's investment attraction and development hub, which partnered with Anghami as part of its innovation programme, to develop its global headquarters and a technology and R&D centre in Abu Dhabi. Anghami is currently backed by leading MENA venture capital firms and strategic shareholders, including media groups and telecommunications companies that collectively own approximately 68% of Anghami, with the balance owned by the founders. “We're proud of the product and technology we've been able to build and now we will have the ability to invest more in R&D and innovate providing a product that goes beyond music to immersive experiences around media and entertainment while remaining relevant to our users and focused on our local edge,” said Elie Habib, co-founder, chairman, and CTO of Anghami. SHUAA Capital psc. (DFM: SHUAA), and Singapore based Vistas Media Capital, have gathered commitments of a combined $40 million in a PIPE (SHUAA committed $30 million and Vistas committed $10 million). SHUAA is the UAE's premier publicly listed asset management and investment banking firm listed on the Dubai Financial Market, with over $14 billion in assets under management. The Company expects to have approximately $142 million of cash on its balance sheet at closing to be used primarily to fuel additional growth. Jassim Al-Seddiqi, group CEO of SHUAA, stated that Anghami's enhanced reputation and access to capital that comes with a listing on NASDAQ accelerates the company's growth journey.
