MUMBAI:East Africa’s leading broadband Internet, VoIP and PayTV provider, Wanachi Group Holdings, has announced that it has raised $57.5 million in growth capital from a group of international investors.
New investors in the financing round include Liberty Global Inc., one of the world’s largest cable companies, Oppenheimer Funds, and Sarona Asset Management, a Canadian-based emerging markets fund manager seeking impact investments.
The company presently services the retail and corporate markets in East Africa through its consumer and corporate divisions. Its consumer division operates under the ‘Zuku’ brand and provides Kenya’s only ‘triple-play’ bundle including 100 PayTV channels, broadband Internet on the Docsis 3.0 platform and VoIP phone services.
The capital raised will be used to continue the deployment of the company’s fiber infrastructure over which it presently offers its triple-play service bundles to retail consumers in Kenya.
Additionally, the capital will be used to support the launch of Wananchi’s direct-to-home (DTH) satellite PayTV offering in the greater East Africa region to 10 countries that include Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, Malawi and Somalia.
Commenting on the announcement Wananchi‘s CEO , Richard Bell said, “Our vision is to become the leading PayTV, broadband Internet and VoIP services provider in East Africa.”
