No official reason has been given for the decision yet, but Maritt Araba Biney Jensen, who was the company’s regional manager for Africa, confirmed Linkfire’s departure on Wednesday. She said it has been “a challenging, fun, learning and exciting year bringing Linkfire to the continent”.
“The music industry here is evolving so fast and I’m so amazed by the individuals I’ve met driving these changes,” Jensen said. “Thank you to my team for being part of Linkfire Africa experience. Entering a new market was not a small challenge, and my best decision was hiring talent that knew a lot about the market.”
Jensen also lauded the music industry in Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa, for “welcoming us and seeing the vision”.
Linkfire was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Denmark. By establishing a presence in the sub-Saharan region, Linkfire, a ‘software as a service’ (SaaS) marketing platform for the music and creative industries, sought to increase African traffic from 3.5 million to 35 million hits per month by 2023.
Speaking to Music In Africa earlier this year, Jensen said that her vision for the company comprised “growing Linkfire’s products and services in a way that fits the main markets on the continent, and establishing strong and sustainable partnerships”. She added that this included increasing the number of visitors exploring music through Linkfire across Africa and supporting the music industry with data.
The news of the exit comes just a month after the company entered into a partnership with the Music Business Academy for Africa to sponsor 10 women to join its training programme.