NEW YORK and LONDON, Sept. 11,
2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Akazoo S.A. (NASDAQ: SONG) ("SONG"
or "Company") today announced the successful completion of the
previously announced merger of Akazoo Ltd. with Modern Media
Acquisition Corp., previously trading under the ticker symbol MMDM.
Akazoo expects to begin trading today on the Nasdaq Stock Market
under the ticker symbol "SONG," having raised around $55 million in new capital.
The combined company, Akazoo S.A., is a leading global music
streaming platform and technology company with a strong
international market position focused on emerging markets.
Both Akazoo Ltd.'s management and its shareholders rolled
over their equity into $380 million
of common shares of the combined Company. Additionally, the parties
raised new capital of about $55
million to fund the Company's growth initiatives and for
general corporate purposes.
Akazoo S.A., SONG, operates in 25 countries, including emerging
markets that represent the music streaming industry's fastest
growing market opportunities. Akazoo's platform boasts patented
Sonic AI music recommendation and profiling technology, developed
to support its hyper-local strategy.
In the last 5 years, SONG's premium subscribers have grown from
1.1 million in 2014 to over 5.3 million today. In the first half of
2019, the Company's revenues grew 39% year-over-year. Growth is
expected to be driven by an array of existing and new partnerships
that include mobile operators, handset manufacturers, media and
partnering mobile applications and services, as well as growth in
smartphone penetration in their core markets.
The Founder & CEO of Akazoo Ltd., Apostolos N. Zervos, will continue as the
Founder & CEO of the combined company, Akazoo S.A. "We are
excited to complete this transaction and transition to public
company status and welcome our new shareholders. With the backing
of strong strategic partners, favorable industry trends and a
debt-free balance sheet, we are ready to accelerate our organic
growth, further develop our Sonic AI technology and launch highly
innovative growth initiatives. Additionally, our new public
currency will allow us to grow through valuable industry
acquisitions and consolidation," said Zervos.
Lew Dickey, who will serve as the
combined entity's Chairman, said "Akazoo has created a high growth
digital global music streaming platform that is well-positioned to
benefit from secular shifts underway in the media industry. Its
strong presence in emerging markets provides a foundation for
sustained growth in revenues and profits and our strong balance
sheet will be used to fund many growth initiatives."
Akazoo S.A,, SONG, also today announced the members of the Board
of Directors of the combined Company that includes leaders from the
technology, media, transportation and fintech space.
Lew Dickey is currently the Chairman & CEO of Modern
Media. In 1997, Lew co-founded Cumulus Media and built it
into the 2nd largest radio company in America, serving as
Chairman and CEO for 16 years. He is also Chairman of
Modern Luxury, the nation's largest regional publishing
company. Lew has a Bachelors and Masters from
Stanford and an MBA from Harvard.
Apostolos N. Zervos is currently
Founder & CEO of Akazoo, that he founded as a music streaming
service in 2010. He has more than 15 years of experience in
managing, building and scaling innovative and disruptive technology
consumer propositions in new media organically and through M&A.
As an executive and entrepreneur, he has pioneered and launched
some of the first global mobile propositions for Fortune 500
companies and top global brands and grown Akazoo to over
$100 million in revenues.
Apostolos N. Zervos received his
B.A. from Yale University, in 2002.
Maja Lapcevic is Senior Vice
President, Mastercard Labs and leads Mastercard Lab's Global
Innovation Programs. Prior to joining Mastercard, Maja held
multiple roles at Citi Ventures including Senior Vice President,
Venture Investing and Director of Strategic Growth, focusing on
Commerce Payments, FinTech, and Market Technology domains.
Lapcevic holds a B.A. in Government from Georgetown University.
Athan Stephanopoulos is President of NowThis, the
leading digital media brand that produces and
distributes video news for mobile and social audiences. Today,
NowThis is the largest news source for millennials globally
(according to Tubular Labs). Previously, Stephanopoulos was the
founder and CEO of a Cliptamatic, a social video distribution
platform that was acquired by NowThis in 2014.
David Roche is currently the
Executive Chairman of GoHenry Ltd. a privately backed Fintech
company and the former President of Hotels.com and Expedia Lodging
Partner Service, Expedia Inc, where he grew Hotels.com global
expansion over 10 years. He also serves as the Chairman of
Guestline, a software company operating in the hospitality space.
He is an experienced angel investor in the European technology
space and holds an MBA from INSEAD.
Alexander Macridis is currently
the Chairman and Managing Director of Chryssafidis S.A. an
industrial equipment distribution company operating in South East Europe, a Member of the Board
of Directors of Aegean Airlines, a General Secretary of
SEV, the Hellenic Federation of Industries and Member of
Yale University's President's Council
on International Activities. In previous roles, Macridis was at
Goldman Sachs & Co., in M&A and Corporate Finance. Macridis
has a BA and JD Law degree from Yale
University and an MBA from Harvard
Business School.
Panagiotis Dimitropoulos has been
a non-executive director of Akazoo Limited since 2015. Mr.
Dimitropoulos founded InternetQ Group Ltd in 2000 and has been its
Chief Executive Officer since November 1,
2012. Mr. Dimitropoulos is considered a pioneer in the
mobile value added services industry and has grown InternetQ to one
with international presence and operations. He completed his
academic studies in Law at the Athens University and earned an MBA from
ALBA.
To learn more about Akazoo, visit www.akazoo.com
Loeb & Loeb LLP, Phanar Legal and Arendt &
Medernach SA served as legal counsel to Akazoo Ltd.
Macquarie Capital acted as lead financial advisor, and Advection
Growth Capital acted as a placement agent. Jones Day and Greenberg Traurig LLP served as
legal counsel to MMDM.
About Akazoo
Akazoo, founded in 2010, is a global, on-demand music streaming
subscription company with a focus on emerging markets. Akazoo's
Premium service provides subscribers with unlimited online and
offline high-quality streaming access to a catalog of over 45
million songs on a commercial-free basis. Akazoo's free,
ad-supported Radio service consists of over 100,000 stations and
exists as a separate application. With a presence in 25 countries
and growing, Akazoo's platform includes 43 million registered users
and 5.3 million premium subscribers as of June 30, 2019. Akazoo directly licenses music
from thousands of labels and provides both online and offline
listening platforms, social media integration, and a patented,
AI-driven new music recommendation engine. As consumers across the
globe continue to shift their media consumption to mobile devices,
Akazoo is equipped with a world-class mobile application and user
experience which works seamlessly across a multitude of mobile
devices and provides a high-quality user experience across a range
of mobile networks from 2g to 4g LTE and soon 5g.
Forward Looking Statements
This release contains certain forward-looking statements within
the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private
Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended, based on the
current expectations, estimates and projections of Akazoo S.A. (the
"Company") about the Company's operations, industry, financial
condition, performance, results of operations, and liquidity.
Forward-looking statements can be identified by the fact that they
do not relate strictly to historical or current facts. Statements
containing words such as "may," "could," "believe," "anticipate,"
"expect," "intend," "plan," "project," "projections," "business
outlook," "estimate," or similar expressions constitute
forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements represent
management's current expectations or predictions of future
conditions, events or results. These forward-looking statements
include, but are not limited to, statements about, or are based
upon assumptions regarding, the Company's strategies and future
financial performance; expectations or estimates about future
business plans or objectives, prospective performance and
opportunities and competitors, including revenues; customer
acquisition and retention; operating expenses; market trends,
including those in the markets in which the Company competes;
liquidity; cash flows and uses of cash; capital expenditures; the
Company's ability to invest in growth initiatives and pursue
acquisition opportunities; the Company's products and services;
pricing; marketing plans; the anticipated benefits of
the transaction with MMDM; the sources and uses of cash; and
the continued listing of the combined company's securities on
Nasdaq. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these
forward-looking statements, which reflect management's good faith
beliefs, assumptions and expectations only as of the date hereof.
Any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future
performance or results and involve risks and uncertainties that may
cause actual performance and results to differ materially from
those predicted, many of which are beyond the Company's control.
Reported results should not be considered an indication of future
performance. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation
to publicly release the results of any revision or update to these
forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect events or
circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of
unanticipated events.
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SOURCE Akazoo