Nigeria's Publiseer goes to South Africa

The southern African country is the third outpost for the Lagos-based startup, which has already expanded operations to Ghana and Kenya.

Besides the business angle for the young company, the development has personal resonance for the founders. "When naming the platform, we brainstormed and played around with a couple of words," Publiseer CEO Chidi Nwaogu said.

"Many words from different languages [came up], but the name 'Publiseer' really stood out. It stood out in many ways. One, it was just a letter different from the word Publisher and it also means publish in Afrikaans, a language spoken in South Africa and Namibia."

“Finally expanding into the South African market is a dream come true," he added. "Hopefully, we get to make several milestones here as we’ve done in Nigeria."

Publiseer has published more than 500 tracks from over 200 musicians. It has also generated over $3 000 monthly. The startup was nominated for the fourth AppsAfrica Innovations Awards and was the first publisher from the continent to be inducted into the International Publishing Distribution Association. In September, Nwaogu announced a deal with YouTube that enables Publiseer's artists to share music on the streaming service.

“We’re thrilled to be able to offer the convenience of one-stop distribution," he said at the time. "We’ve been asked about distributing to YouTube Music for quite some time, and it’s a pleasure to be able to offer this to our artists.”

It is unclear if the South African artists will enjoy the YouTube deal as artists from Nigeria and Ghana have since the announcement. It is, however, certain that they will receive other support: "Now, Publiseer's authors and musicians from South Africa can get customer support via +27 64 396 8857," the company posted on social media yesterday.