Aferian Regulatory News (AFRN)

RNS

5 April 2022

AFERIAN PLC

("Aferian", the "Company" or the "Group")

Acquisition of AI-powered video recommendation service The Filter

Complementary to the Group's 24i product offering, the acquisition is aligned with the Group's 2025 strategy to address the convergence of streaming services and traditional Pay TV

Aferian plc (LSE AIM: AFRN), the B2B video streaming solutions company, today announces that it has acquired 100% of the issued share capital of Exabre Limited, trading as The Filter ("The Filter"), a UK-headquartered AI-powered video recommendation service (the "Acquisition").

Acquisition detail and rationale

The Filter's cutting-edge data science, analysis and machine learning technologies help consumers find and watch more of the video content they love. The Filter's customers include streaming providers Joyn in Germany, EPIX in the USA and BBC Studio owned UKTV Play in the UK.

The Filter's technology will significantly accelerate the roadmap of 24i's video streaming platform by adding enhanced analytics, recommendations and personalisation to its existing data analytics services. 24i will also market The Filter's managed service solution to its existing OTT and Pay TV customers and prospects as a standalone service.

Led by The Filter's current CEO Damien Read, who will join 24i as SVP of Data Products, The Filter's team of data scientists will continue to be based in Bath and will work alongside 24i's existing data analytics team.

The move represents a further supportive step along the Group's 2025 strategy, which addresses the convergence of streaming services and traditional Pay TV. It is also in line with the Company's objective to acquire key and emerging technologies that add value to its platform's capabilities by making it easier for end consumers to find the video and content they love.

Consideration

The Filter generated a loss before tax of $0.5m for the year ended 31 December 2021 and had total assets of $1.0m as at 31 December 2021.

The initial consideration is £1.5m ($2.0m), satisfied in cash, of which £1.2m ($1.6m) was paid on completion and £0.3m ($0.4m) has been deferred until 18 months after the acquisition date. Additional consideration is payable, of up to £2.5m ($3.2m), subject to achieving certain annual recurring revenue ("ARR") growth at increments of additional ARR of £0.5m ($0.6m). The additional consideration will be settled in cash and payable in two tranches, at the first and second anniversaries of the acquisition.

Donald McGarva, CEO of Aferian plc, said: "With The Filter's team expertise in personalised, data-driven analytics and recommendations, this acquisition will accelerate our vision of making it easier to connect people to the TV and video they love. As part of 24i, The Filter's technology enhances and complements our offering, as well as opening up new opportunities to the business. I would like to welcome The Filter's team to the Group, and we look forward to working with them over the coming years."

Damien Read, The Filter's CEO, who now becomes 24i's SVP of Data Products, said: "The Filter has a history of significantly improving people's entertainment experience though using cutting edge data science. We power everything from the "recommended for you" rails in video streaming apps, to personalised recommendations in marketing and even entirely dynamic user interfaces that adapt to the individual consumer's viewing habits. Continuously improving personalisation is enormously important to our streaming customers and our powerful insights often help to shape their strategic thinking. We are very excited to be joining the 24i family as this will help us to further develop our offering and bring this game-changing technology to a wider range of entertainment companies worldwide."

For further information please contact: 

About Aferian plc 

Aferian plc (AIM: AFRN) is a B2B video streaming solutions company. Our end-to-end solutions bring live and on-demand video to every kind of screen. We create the forward-thinking solutions that our customers need to drive subscriber engagement, audience satisfaction, and revenue growth.

It is our belief that successful media companies and services will be those that are most consumer-centric, data driven and flexible to change. We focus on innovating technologies that enable our customers stay ahead of evolving viewer demand by providing smarter, more cost-effective ways of delivering end-to-end modern TV and video experiences to consumers. By anticipating technological and behavioural audience trends, our software solutions empower our customers to heighten viewer enjoyment, drive growth in audience share and ultimately their profitability.

Aferian plc has two operating companies: 24i, which focusses on streaming video experiences, and Amino, which connects Pay TV to streaming services. Our two complementary companies combine their products and services to create solutions which ensure that people can consume TV and video how and when they want it. Our solutions deliver modern TV and video experiences every day to millions of viewers globally, via our growing global customer base of over 500 service providers.

Aferian plc is traded on the London Stock Exchange's AIM stock market (AIM: symbol AFRN). Headquartered in Cambridge, UK, the Company has over 350 staff located in offices in San Francisco, Amsterdam, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Madrid, Porto, Brno, Buenos Aires, and Hong Kong. For more information, please visit www.aferian.com.