Anghami to list on Nasdaq via SPAC at a valuation of $220 million

Anghami to list on Nasdaq via SPAC at a valuation of $220 million

Anghami, the leading music streaming platform in the Middle East & North Africa is going public by merging with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). A SPAC is also known as a blank-cheque company and is formed to raise money through an IPO with the aim to buy an existing company and take it public.

The SPAC Anghami is merging with is Vistas Media Acquisition Company which is led by F. Jacob Cherian and co-founders Saurabh Gupta and Abhayanand Singh. Vistas had gone public on Nasdaq about six months ago in a $100 million IPO.  Anghami as a result of the deal will become the first Arab technology company to list on Nasdaq (New York) and will trade under the symbol ‘ANGH'.

The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2021 and implies an initial pro-forma enterprise valuation of approximately $220 million, 2.5x 2022 estimated revenues. As the statement by Anghami points out, this compares to Spotify's current revenue multiple of 6.5x revenue.

Founded in 2012 by Eddy Maroun and Elie Habib in Lebanon, Anghami currently offers over 57 million songs to more than 70 million registered users, recording about 1 billion streams every month. The startup that recently moved its