Aleph expands partnership with Spotify to manage Global Advertising Sales in over 80 markets

Aleph and Spotify’s expanded partnership marks a new era for South African advertisers, offering brands the tools to connect with a diverse and digitally engaged audience. With South Africa’s love for music and storytelling, this partnership enables advertisers to tap into moments that resonate with local listeners, whether the high-energy soundtracks of morning commutes or the relaxing playlists defining weekend downtime. With advanced targeting options and innovative formats like Canvas and Opt-in Video, this collaboration empowers South African brands to deliver relevant and impactful campaigns. 

South Africa, May 20, 2025– Aleph, a global network of digital experts innovating at the intersection of media and payments, and Spotify, the world's most popular audio streaming subscription service, today announced an expanded partnership that makes Aleph Spotify's advertising sales partner in 80+ markets, providing access to 20,000+ advertisers.

Spotify Advertising has been modernising its ad tech, strengthening its partnerships and deepening its human expertise to make it easier for advertisers to buy, create, measure, and get clear results on Spotify’s ad platform. Spotify’s efforts reflect a significant step forward in automated buying and creative innovation for the ad platform and the broader digital audio industry. Most notably, Spotify is continuing to innovate its self-serve platform, Spotify Ads Manager, with more advanced targeting capabilities, new 1P & 3P measurement solutions, and new outcome-based objectives to help advertisers of all sizes create, optimise, and measure their Spotify campaigns, including Spotify Pixel, Custom Audiences, key third-party partnerships and a new App Installs objective.

Aleph has been a trusted partner to Spotify since 2013, when the initial partnership started with four countries. The newly signed partnership brings Aleph's comprehensive suite of services—including local media sales, payment solutions, creative support, and performance-driven automation—to effectively monetise Spotify’s advertising inventory and connect the brand with advertisers, streamlining and scaling Spotify's ad solutions to 80+ markets.

Aleph’s teams willhave access to Spotify’s Ads Manager to guide advertisers and agencies to leverage the platform's full potential of advertising formats and targeting capabilities to ensure they can reach listeners during key moments, such as workout sessions, focused work periods and commuting to provide advertisers and brands with unique opportunities to connect with their target audience when they’re highly engaged and help reach their marketing goals.

Key benefits for advertisers working with Spotify Ads Manager through Aleph include: 

• Access to Spotify’s ad formats: Advertisers will be ableto utilise Spotify’s unique audio and video ad formats to craft engaging campaigns. Spotify recently introduced new ad formats available on Ads Manager, including Canvas and Opt-in Video. These new formats reimagine what ads on Spotify can be and how advertisers can engage with people through sight and sound.

  
  

• Objective-based buying: The Ads Manager will allow advertisers to choose goals like reach, impressions, clicks, or video views for highly targeted campaigns. Spotify recently announced new outcome-based objectives to help advertisers of all sizes create, optimise, and measure their Spotify campaigns, including a new App Installs objective and a new Website Traffic Objective.

  
  

• Lower costs: Flexible daily or lifetime budgets make Spotify advertising more accessible and cost-effective for partners thanks to Aleph’s campaign management.

  
  

“We are thrilled to partner with Spotify on a global scale, and especially excited and happy to extend the partnership to include Sub-Saharan Africa, namely in South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda," said Stephen Newton, Managing Director Sub-Saharan Africa at Aleph. "Our shared commitment to innovation and delivering exceptional value for advertisers makes this a natural partnership."

As we continue to grow our ads business, I’m excited to share that we’ve partnered with Aleph to streamline our operations, offer better solutions to advertisers and scale our business more efficiently. With the launch of our more automated solutions and Aleph’s exceptional global network and deep local expertise, we’re now able to offer advertisers around the world new tools and resources that will help them reach their campaign goals,” said Sam Bevan, Global Head of Emerging & Scaled at Spotify.

Aleph is a global leader in digital media solutions, connecting over 22,000 advertisers in more than 100 primarily emerging markets, including Sub-Saharan Africa. Aleph provides comprehensive advertising services through partnerships with major platforms like Spotify, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, and TikTok. In Sub-Saharan Africa, Aleph supports advertisers with tailored solutions, including platform-specific strategies, performance-driven automation, and creative support through its in-house agency, SELVA.  

*Note to editors: Aleph is now the global sales partner for Spotify in  Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vietnam & more.

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About Aleph

Aleph is a global network of digital experts innovating at the Intersection of media and payments. The company connects 60+ leading digital media platforms (including Amazon, Criteo, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Pinterest, Reddit, Snap, Spotify, TikTok, Twitch, Uber, X and others) across 130+ countries, enabling 26,000 advertisers to engage over 3 billion consumers. Local payment, Aleph’s fintech subsidiary, integrates media sales and payment service processing capabilities into a powerful solution for seamless global expansion for its clients, while Digital Ad Expert is a premier education platform and offers certifications for individuals and custom-tailored solutions for businesses, governments, NGOs and IGOs such as UNESCO. 

About Spotify

Since its launch in 2008, Spotify has revolutionised music listening. Its move into podcasting brought innovation and a new generation of listeners to the medium. In 2022, Spotify took the next leap, entering the fast-growing audiobook market, continuing to shape the future of audio.

Today, more listeners than ever can discover, manage and enjoy over 100 million tracks, 7 million podcast titles, and 350,000 audiobooks a la carte on Spotify. Spotify is the world’s most popular audio streaming subscription service with more than 678 million users, including 268 million subscribers in more than 180 markets.

Press Contacts

Aleph

press@alephholding.com 

R7-million ATM ‘software heist’ in South Africa

Suspects allegedly used “specialised software” to steal about R7-million in cash from Western Cape ATMs.

The East London unit of the Directorate for Priority Crimes Investigation, also known as the Hawks, has arrested two suspects who are alleged to have used “specialised software” to make R7-million in illegal cash withdrawals from ATMs serviced by Fidelity Cash Solutions in various locations in the Western Cape.

According to Hawks head Godfrey Lebeya, the Hawks acted on a 15 March tipoff that two days later led to the arrest of suspects Mongameli Tom and Sikhumbuzo Honono. The arresting team comprised of members of the Hawks, Peddie Visible Policing, Western Cape Crime Intelligence and the SAPS Western Cape commercial crimes unit.

By Nkosinathi Ndlovu

Full story at Tech Central

Bill Gates to give away $200-billion in next 20 years

Bill Gates pledged on Thursday to give away $200-billion via his foundation by 2045. He also lashed out at Elon Musk.

Bill Gates pledged on Thursday to give away US$200-billion via his charitable foundation by 2045 and lashed out at Elon Musk, accusing the world’s richest man of “killing the world’s poorest children” through huge cuts to the US foreign aid budget.

The 69-year-old billionaire co-founder of Microsoft said he was speeding up his plans to divest almost all of his fortune and would close the foundation on 31 December 2045, years earlier than previously planned. Gates said he believed the money would help achieve several of his goals, such as eradicating diseases like polio and malaria, ending preventable deaths among women and children, and reducing global poverty.

By Agency Staff

Full story at Tech Central

Lemfi’s $53 million Series B delivers 29x return for Silverbacks Holdings

When Nigerian remittance startup LemFi closed its $53 million Series B round in January 2025, one of the biggest winners was Sliverbacks Holdings. The Africa-focused private equity firm, which also invested in Flutterwave and Moove, quietly exited its stake in the round, achieving a 29x return on its initial investment—an extraordinary outcome in a funding environment where big wins have become increasingly rare. 

The exit, Silverbacks’ eighth overall, aligns with the firm’s strategy of partially exiting its investments to realise profit. It is also the firm’s sixth exit from a Nigerian tech-enabled company and marks the fourth time a Nigerian fintech has delivered returns to Silverbacks’ investors. 

“This 8th profitable exit, which delivered 29x cash invested, is another testament to the quality of our portfolio’s founders and the investment sophistication of the Silverbacks ecosystem, “ said Ibrahim Sagna, the executive chairman of Silverbacks Holdings. “ Our commitment remains to amplify African tech, sports, and creative spirits on the world stage.”

By Muktar Oladunmade.

Full story at Tech Cabal.

Verdant IMAP secures USD 18 million in senior secured debt funding for Zeepay

Verdant IMAP has successfully closed a USD 18 million senior secured debt funding for

Zeepay Ghana Limited. The transaction underscores investor confidence in the company’s

growth strategy and financial fundamentals. The funding will be used for working capital,

including float financing.

Verdant IMAP has structured and implemented a new security sharing arrangement to

facilitate future participation by additional senior secured lenders.

The security sharing is pursuant to a security sharing agreement and common terms

agreement, with the new lenders in this USD 18 million raise and existing international

lenders acceding on the same basis. The structure benefits from an external security trustee

and daily measurement of collateral by an external monitoring agent. New financiers going

forward will be granted access to the existing shared collateral pool on a pari-passu basis,

benefitting from the same first-lien pledge and robust enforcement framework. This flexible

structure positions Zeepay to scale its operations with continued access to institutional debt,

supported by a secure and transparent collateral package.

Founder and CEO of Zeepay, Andrew Takyi Appiah said: “I am grateful for the support of the

new investors and ongoing support our existing partners. The new structure, will allow for

simple and transparent onboarding of new investors as required, as we implement our

growth strategy.”

Verdant IMAP acted as financial advisor to the Zeepay and arranger for the financing

package.

About Zeepay:

Founded in 2014, Zeepay continues to dominate in the area of mobile financial services,

providing digital solutions in international remittance and mobile money. The company has

operations in over 25 countries, as well as mobile money licenses in 6 markets. This

affords the users the benefit of an ecosystem of reduce transaction costs and improved

access to financial services for those excluded from the financial system. Overall, Zeepay’s

digital infrastructure enables millions of users to significantly reduce transaction costs for

remittance and mobile money services, thereby directly increasing their incomes, and

providing better access to financial services across the Sub Sahara Africa region.

About Verdant:

Verdant IMAP is a leading investment bank and investment manager operating on a Pan-

African basis and specialising in private capital markets. Verdant IMAP is the manager of the

Verdant Capital Hybrid Fund. The Verdant Capital Hybrid Fund is investing mezzanine

capital into inclusive financial institutions on a pan-African basis. www.verdant-cap.com

Media Enquiries:

Verdant Capital:

Orient Mahonisi,

T: +27 10 140 3700

E: orient.mahonisi@verdant-cap.com