Singularity Investments, Invest in Sliide Airtime, a Mobile Advertising Technology Start-up

Singularity Investments-a private investment company with operations in Africa and North America,announced recently that it has invested an undisclosed sum  of money into Sliide Airtime, a mobile advertising technology start-up that gives consumers free airtime in return for engaging with news and branded content delivered to the lock screen of their mobile devices.

This investment further confirms Singularity’s commitment to the Nigerian telecoms market and follows last month’s investment in Lagos-based corporate market intelligence startup, Asoko Insight. Singularity Investments Principal Issam Darwish said: “Sliide has an innovative business model that enables operators and consumer brands to achieve sustainable customer engagement in competitive environments, while enhancing the value of the mobile experience for their customers. We believe that, by combining the innovative ideas and skills of the Sliide team with our expertise in scaling pan-African businesses, the Sliide platform is just the first of the company’s disruptive mobile-based products that will add tremendous value to the mobile ecosystem across Africa.”

Sliide Airtime launched Africa’s first lock screen content delivery platform in Nigeria in March. The platform provides users with a new way of accessing content from their mobile devices, while simultaneously earning free airtime. After entering information about their interests, users receive personalised content as soon as they wake their phone, including news and entertainment handpicked from local and international media sources as well as branded and sponsored content.

Sliide Airtime provides advertisers with a new and unique platform to reach consumers through their most prized and most frequently used device – the mobile. Furthermore, Sliide Airtime enables mobile network operators to benefit from shared advertising revenues, as well as increased user engagement and time spent online. The Sliide Airtime Android app can be downloaded from the Google Play Store or directly from the website. Sliide Airtime has partnered with a variety of organisations to deliver branded content, including Google, Facebook’s Audience Network, and Twinpine, the largest mobile advertising network in Africa and part of Africa’s leading digital media business.

Terragon Group Corbyn Munnik, co-founder and CEO of Sliide Airtime, said “The response to our launch in Nigeria was phenomenal and exceeded expectations. Our business model has proven successful, and we welcome Singularity’s involvement as we continue to grow the company.” Sliide Airtime will be using the Singularity investment to expand its operations in Nigeria, while a further funding round is planned for later this year to finance expansion into South Africa, Ghana and Kenya.