Long gone are the days when television, radio, and newspapers were the dominant channels to capture the attention of an audience. In today’s digital world all one needs is stable internet, some talent, and, if possible, a robust marketing strategy. The London-based social recruitment startup, NewComma, was founded on this premise.
In Africa, the creative sector is set to swell to $20billion annually by 2030 and provide an estimated 20 million jobs – figures prompting governments in the continent to set up policy strategies to engineer GDP growth, economic diversification, and mirror the success of nations like the UAE.
Childhood friends Natalie Narh and Nigel Atta-Mensah launched NewComma in 2020 to build digital infrastructure for the world’s youngest continent to participate in this economy.
The mobile-first app connects African writers, musicians, actors, photographers, videographers, illustrators and other creatives to a global community of fellow creators and brands.
Unearthing Africa’s creative talent
In the summer of 2012, after an intensive four-day, paid photography course in London, the British-Ghanaian duo, then students at an international boarding school in Tema, Ghana, decided to share their learnings with schoolmates who did not have the same opportunity. That initiative and access to a network of creatively-inclined individuals from different parts of the continent, became a precursor to founding NewComma.
“We never really had to think of Pan-Africanism as a theory,” said Narh, NewComma’s CEO. “It was just, ‘Oh my roommate is from Kenya, my roommate is Ethiopian etc’, […] Naturally every idea that we thought of wasn’t specific to Ghana, it was always specific to the continent and beyond because that’s what was native to us.”
Still active in the underground artistic scene back home in Ghana, Narh and Atta-Mensah collaborated again in 2017 while attending university in England on a visual editorial series titled, “The Cool Kids Project”. The first instalment of the project featured then-emerging Ghanaian artists Darkovibes and the musical collective La Même Gang as cover stars on mocks of prestigious industry publications like Fader, Complex, and Paper.
A few years later, both musical acts landed actual features in Fader and Complex respectively. By engineering that validation and seeing it become real, the duo affirmed a theory they’ve had which is that African creatives are not typically perceived as commercially-viable until they have the attention of Western media.
“Especially with African creatives, our talent is always there, but people don’t necessarily recognise that talent until we’ve garnered some Western validation,” says Narh.
The duo launched NewComma in response, as a platform for African creatives to show up authentically while seeking commercial viability on a global stage.
Preliminary work began on the platform in late 2019 and it launched to the public in 2021. With it came a user-friendly interface where creators can set up free profiles, engage with other creators on an intuitive social feed, upload multimedia resumes that demonstrate their skills to other creators, potential collaborators, and employers.
Partner brands can advertise open roles on the platform’s job board to a niche talent pool ready and able to deliver on projects.
In 2023, the startup raised a £150,000 pre-seed round from SFC Capital, a UK-based early-stage investment firm. Following the raise, Narh, then an Ogilvy and Billion Dollar Boy creative executive, and banker Atta-Mensah (who is COO), left their full-time jobs to commit to NewComma full-time.
An off-line/on-line approach
While platforms like Amaka, Contra, and LinkedIn have comparable offerings, NewComma purports itself to be a first-of-its-kind all-in-one ‘phygital’ platform. Phygital, a compounding of the word physical and digital, as Narh explains, “blends the best of both worlds in a way that makes the most sense for [their] community.”
With over 60% of NewComma’s user base early-to-mid-level creatives, having opportunities to meet in-person with their potential collaborators and employers is invaluable. In June, 2025, the platform offered 8 platinum passes for the inaugural South by Southwest (SXSW) week-long festival in London.
Tunji Ogunoye, a brand designer based in London was one of the recipients of the SXSW pass. “As a newly immigrated African in the UK, being a part of the community has also brought me new connections that are quickly becoming friends and collaborators,” Ogunoye says. “[NewComma] solves the community problem, first, virtually, and secondly, physically via events and meet ups.”
Image Source: NewComma
NewComma operates on a freemium model, offering essential tools for free while unlocking advanced features through upcoming paid memberships. They also generate revenue from transaction fees and ad placements.
Starting from £6 a month, creators can gain access to discounted event tickets, co-working spaces, equipment rentals, studio time, restaurant vouchers, all things that, for a remote-work preferring demographic, are crucial for their creativity and earning potential.
Organisations that need to hire talent can leverage NewComma’s 17,000+ creator base and over 60,000 across their social networks from just £50 ($68). To date, over 400 creatives have secured opportunities via the NewComma platform, according to the co-founders.
Outside of the traditional full-time and part-time work arrangements, listings on the NewComma job board can vary from open calls for exhibitions to arts residencies, competitions, exhibitions, and more. So far they have partnered with leading companies such as Google, Getty Images, London School of Economics, Adjaye Associates, and Stratcomm Africa to offer diasporan African creators opportunities to connect and earn.
Newly-added features like ‘Services’ give creatives the option to advertise their skills, and with a fully customisable ‘Project Builder’, partner brands can seamlessly sift through portfolios of creators all within the app. An upgraded end-to-end applicant tracking system also allows for precise reporting on live interactions between creators and companies.
A global stage with local acts
Despite being headquartered in the UK, NewComma has a global presence in key African markets with strong cultural dominance like Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and Namibia. “We’re very much still continental wide in the particular experiences that we’ve curated. For us it’s being very sensitive to the various ways that Africans interact with each other, digitally and physically,” said Narh.
It is this community-led creativity and grounding in the needs of the audience that gives creators a more tactile and layered experience, elevating connection initiated on the app.
Since 2022, creatives on the platform have the opportunity every month to apply for the NewComma Creative Fund (NCF), a £100 micro grant to support their work. In the last three years, the founders say they have disbursed over £8,000 to creators in their network.
London-based anti-disciplinary artist Munotida Chinyanga who was the first-ever recipient of the grant said, “It affirmed that my work was being seen and helped me keep momentum during a challenging period.”
Chinyanga added: “In an industry that often expects us to dilute our voices, they offer a platform that reflects our complexity.”
For remote-working creatives on the continent, where some spend up to $15 a month, about 6% of monthly income, on data expenses, these micro grants can offer a lifeline and much needed financial leeway to continue creating.
Looking ahead, NewComma’s founders are continuing a roll out of features to improve the earning potential of creators on their platform wherever they are, including a payout feature targeted for a H2 2025 release.
With a seed funding round underway, the duo are accelerating the next phase of their growth plans to strengthen the quality of their core features and significantly scale their marketing efforts.
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