Next Narrative Africa Fund (NNAF), a $40 M commercial content fund paired with a $10M non-profit Venture Studio focused on African and Diasporan content, today announced a strategic partnership with Parrot Analytics, the global leader in entertainment analytics and IP valuation. This alliance serves as the final diligence layer before the Fund activates its capital, bringing data-driven intelligence to its Greenlight Committee as it prepares to greenlight its inaugural slate of 6-10 projects – selected from over 2,000 global submissions – in March. The partnership positions NNAF as Africa’s first “Parrot-powered” investor, utilizing the industry’s leading predictive data to scientifically validate the thesis that African content is a globally undervalued asset class.
The partnership was announced by NNAF founder and CEO Akunna Cook and Parrot Analytics founder and CEO Wared Seger. By integrating data-driven intelligence into its development and funding decisions, NNAF is moving beyond the traditional philanthropy-based models of the past. Instead, the Fund will utilize Parrot Analytics’ proprietary demand data to generate Greenlight Confidence Scores for its Venture Studio, ensuring that capital is deployed toward stories with quantifiable global travelability. This rigorous approach aims to set a new standard for an ROI-driven African content investment, de-risking the sector for institutional capital.
Said Akunna Cook, “For too long, the perceived risk of African content has been based on bias rather than data. This partnership with Parrot Analytics changes the conversation. We are not just funding stories; we are leveraging world-class analytics to prove that African narratives are a globally undervalued asset class. By combining this data with our $40M commercial fund and $10M venture studio, we are building infrastructure that delivers high-yield returns by enabling smarter decisions that lead to entertainment content success.”
Cook added, “Africa offers an abundance of vibrant cultures and narratives, and global interest in these stories is surging. We are excited to be on the first lap of a race toward mass global adoption, following a trajectory akin to the explosive success of Korean content over the last decade.”
As part of the partnership, NNAF has commissioned Parrot Analytics to provide data for the first comprehensive entertainment Landscape Study on Africa to quantify the massive supply-demand gap in the African entertainment market. While a 2025 study from the University of Georgia’s Selig Center for Economic Growth confirms Black consumers control over $2.1 trillion in buying power, this report will be the first to scientifically map how that influence converts into viewership for African content. By correlating this economic power with global viewership trends, NNAF will validate the thesis that African content is not just culturally significant, but a commercially viable sector ready for institutional scale.
Said Wared Seger, CEO, Parrot Analytics: “For too long, the perceived risk of African content has actually been a failure of measurement, not a lack of audience. By partnering with NNAF, we are closing that gap. We are bringing the same global demand measurement used by Hollywood’s biggest studios to the African continent, scientifically proving that these stories don’t just resonate locally – they have the power to travel globally. We are providing the critical intelligence layer that allows NNAF to deploy capital with confidence and industrialize the African creative economy. In doing so, we aren’t just providing analytics; we are validating an entire asset class.”
An extensive, NNAF/Parrot Analytics co-branded Landscape Study highlighting the investment opportunities in African movies and series for the global investment and creative communities will be made public in March. Among the data to be revealed is the global arbitrage opportunity associated with African film and TV investment, underpinned by a comparative analysis of the volume of African/Diasporan content produced vs. global demand for that content, answering questions relating to where the content is being watched, and which platforms are leading the way in distribution.
Key areas of interest for NNAF, which will be covered in the report, include measurement of the travelability of content; the “culture flywheel”; film & TV comparative performance benchmarks; and genre and format opportunities.
In leveraging Parrot Analytics’ global audience analytics, NNAF joins a rapidly growing roster of industry leaders, including streamers and studios such as Disney, Amazon Prime Video, Warner Bros. Discovery and Sony Pictures; media and technology companies including Samsung, Comcast, Amazon, and Google; networks such as Sky, Asharq Network, MBC Group and OSN Group; academic institutes including Harvard, UCLA, University of Chicago, and Duke University; and government agencies such as Canadian Media Fund, British Film Institute and Spain Trade and Investment. Parrot Analytics’ systems are also deployed by leading sports leagues such as the NBA and Wall Street analysis firms like Bernstein.
Investors and media interested in receiving the African Entertainment Landscape Study upon its release in March can register their interest at www.nextnarrativeafricafund.com.
Raggedy Ann
Zuko Tisani founded Legazy Technology Conferencing that helps technology start-ups exhibit their talents on a global scale through platforms such as Web Summit. This enables them to reach their peers and sell their technology ideas to the right people at an affordable rate. Legazy is now a subsidiary of the By Design Communications Group. It was acquired after Tisani managed to secure a USD1 million letter of intent from one of Africa\’s largest TMT (technology, media, telecom) companies for the hosting of a new Web summit conference in South Africa in 2018. He is also part of the world\’s top 350 handpicked entrepreneurs in the world under 25, according to the Kairos Global Society.