UAE-based Anghami, the first music-streaming platform in the MENA region, has recently announced the acquisition of Dubai-based Spotlight Events, a live events and concert company.

The acquisition is supposed to help Anghami expand its footprint in the music and entertainment ecosystem by bridging the gap between online and offline entertainment.

Eddy Maroun

“Our vision is to expand from music streaming to a fully integrated entertainment platform that meets our goal of building our unique category that no other provider can compete with,” explained Eddy Maroun, Co-founder and CEO of Anghami.

Maher Khawkhaji, Founder and CEO of Spotlight, believes that Anghami’s reach, data, and technical capabilities will allow Spotlight Events to bring the best to music fans, artists, and brands.

In addition to promoting upcoming concerts and making it easy for users to purchase tickets through Spotlight Events, Anghami will also take advantage of its live video streaming capabilities to deliver concerts as immersive virtual reality experiences.

If everything goes according to plan, the acquisition should help Anghami further increase its growing revenue, which reached $35.5 million in 2021, with the overall gross margin reaching 25.5 percent.

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“Maher has built a great business on solid economics and has proven that live concerts and events are a scalable and profitable business,” said Maroun.

Earlier this year, Anghami became the first Arab tech company to be listed on NASDAQ New York via a merger with Vistas Media Acquisition Company Inc., a publicly-traded special purpose acquisition company. The music-streaming platform is traded under the symbol “ANGH.”

Just like most other tech companies, Anghami is currently not doing well on the stock market. Right now, shares of Anghami are being traded for around $4.30 a piece, a significant decline from the all-time high of $28.88 back in February.