Aferian plc (LON:AFRN) Chief Executive Officer Donald McGarva caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss the acquisition of The Filter, how it enhances the 24i offering and further acquisitions in the future.
Q1: First off, congratulations on Aferian’s acquisition of The Filter. It seems like an interesting business, can you just tell us a bit more about it?
A1: We’re very excited about it, it’s an extremely good business, it’s relatively small but with very strong capabilities. It’s an AI-powered video recommendation service, it has a small team based in Bath, and we’ve known them and worked with them for quite a while and that technology will significantly accelerate our roadmap for our 24i’s video streaming platform. It’s very much in line with the 2025 strategy which addresses the convergence of streaming services and traditional Pay TV.
Q2: How does The Filter enhance the 24i offering?
A2: Well, thanks to the technology in the team and the capabilities, we’re adding enhanced analytics, recommendation, and personalisation to our existing data and analytics services.
As part of 24i, this technology not only enhances and compliments our existing offering but also opens up new opportunities directly for the business. The point of the acquisition is it does scale, The Filter brings the technologies and 24i is bringing that scale, the capabilities and access to the wider market.
We can plug that technology into a system and sell it to customers and enhance our offering to customers almost immediately. We’ll also be able to market that managed service solution to all of our existing OTT and Pay TV customers as a standalone services as well.
Q3: So, what’s next for Aferian in terms of M&A, should we expect more acquisitions? If so, what sort of business would you look at?
A3: We laid out our acquisition strategy quite clearly. One area was to enhance and acquire key emerging technologies that will add value to our platform and that’s exactly what this represents. We also look at things that will give us scale and operational leverage and finally, we’re looking at areas that will enhance our market position or moves us into new markets and opportunities.
So, yes, I would expect that we will do things, this one is very small but very strategic and we’ve got a fairly strict criteria that we’re looking at for these opportunities ahead of us.
We’re in a really good growth market right now, this convergent of streaming with traditional Pay TV and streaming as a standalone service is expected to double over the next four years and we see a great opportunity to drive this software-led growth and capitalise on these shifts in the TV market.
