Nigerian Venture Capital Firm, Unicorn Group, Invests in Kenyan Ada Animation

Ada Animation, an entertainment Tech company under the Ada Labs Africa group of ventures, today announced its pre-seed capital raise from Nigerian venture capital firm Platform Capital through its technology vehicle, Unicorn Group. This investment is a first of its kind in East Africa and is set to elevate entertainment companies in Africa as potential partners in the VC investments realm.

Founded in 2020, Ada Animation was born out of the desire to build capacity in the animation industry, tell animated African stories and catalyze the animation industry for growth.

Ada Animation will use the secured investment to support the company’s growth ambitions to hire great talent, create African content, and further develop its proprietary technology. Ada Animation is supported by a strong advisory board of Dean Lyon, Director at Splinter Studios; Jack Giarraputo, Co-Founder at Happy Madison Productions; Firdaus Kharas at CEO at Chocolate Moose; Joann Yarrow at Executive Director at LIVE Animation Studios. As part of Platform’s investment, Dr. Akintoye Akindele, Chairman of Platform Capital will join the board.

Speaking of the investment, Joy Mwangi, CEO of Ada Animation said, “We are incredibly proud of our partnership with Unicorn Group, a Platform Capital company. This strategic investment represents an important step in our growth as a company, we will immediately ramp up our efforts to attract top talent in animation production to join our journey. Ada Animation is at the forefront of animation industry on the continent, changing the way we represent our content to produce more than we consume and share our stories from our perspectives. We see huge potential for Ada Animation content on millions of screens worldwide. The world will watch movies made from our imagination and will visualize color and creativity born from our culture.”

“We look forward to showcasing to the international community that there is a massive animation market opportunity in Africa for investment and scale through our work, talent and programs. The timing is so critical for us as we have started producing our first animation movie set for a global release next year.” Concluded Mwangi.

Dr. Akintoye Akindele, Chairman of the Unicorn Group explained “We are excited about our partnership with Ada Animation. We have seen how passionate and committed they have been since inception to add value into the animation creatives sector in Africa. We see this as an opportunity to build a dynamic animation industry for the youth. It is about time we fabricated and developed a platform that encourages and supports young creatives on the continent to be at the epicenter of telling African stories. We are optimistic about the development of creative talent and growth of homegrown platforms that will spur international companies’ partnerships in boosting the animation industry.”.

The funding comes soon after the company’s recent partnership with Kenya Film Commission (KFC) to launch an animation summit and the second season of Ada Animation boot camp that will be the largest nationwide training program in the sector.