Fidelity leads funding round for Malaysia's Iflix

Regional media companies including Indonesia’s Media Nusantara Citra, Japan’s Yoshimoto Kogyo, and South Korea’s JTBC also participated in the funding round, along with existing investors such as Malaysian media company Catcha Group, European broadcaster Sky, and US conglomerate Hearst Media. The company will use the new capital to fuel its regional growth plans.

Iflix claims to be the world’s leading subscription video-on-demand service for emerging markets, with access to thousands of TV shows and movies including Asian and Hollywood titles and a business model similar to Netflix. It is currently available across 22 countries in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa, with 17 million active users as of May 2019. Kwesé Iflix, a division focused on sub-Saharan Africa, was sold earlier this year.

Media outlets have reported that Iflix is preparing for an IPO in Australia by the end of 2019; in a statement, the company acknowledged that it was considering a listing but did not provide details.

Patrick Grove, CEO of Catcha, launched Iflix in 2014 in partnership with media and entertainment-focused merchant bank Evolution Media Capital. The platform has raised several rounds of funding from Catcha and other investors, most recently a Hearst-led transaction in 2017 that also included Singapore’s EDBI.

“These investments are a clear affirmation of Iflix’s business model and growth prospects, and strengthens our ties to some of the region’s largest providers of local content,” said Grove. “We have a strong pipeline of new content and are excited to be making our most extensive ever content offering available to our millions of users across the region.”

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Technology
• Media
• Consumer
• Expansion
• Malaysia
• TMT
• Fidelity
• Growth capital