Company
We’ve run newsrooms.
Now we’re rebuilding them.
A47 was started by two operators who spent the last decade scaling digital media, and watched the industry try to solve newsroom decline by hiring less. We thought there was a better answer.
Three things changed in 18 months.
- The threshold
Model quality crossed the line where AI can be trusted to ship under a masthead, with the right scaffolding. Multi-source, multi-model verification is that scaffolding, and it is finally good enough.
- 26%
of U.S. newsroom jobs are gone since 2008, with 3,000+ more cut across UK and US journalism in 2025 alone. Headcount can no longer be the answer.
- 16%
of fact-checked claims now involve AI-generated content, double the prior year. Hallucination is why most editors still say no to AI. We built A47 around verification first, the production engine second.
Headcount can’t be the answer.
The output a shrinking newsroom needs would take 30 to 100 editorial staff. A47 ships it with two people and six agents, running unattended. That is the whole bet: editorial judgment stays human, production goes to machines.
Traditional newsroom
30–100+ editorial FTEs
A47
2 people + 6 agents, unattended
Two operators. One bet.
Operators from
- Nukta
- ARY
- Alibaba
- Tiki
- Rocket Internet
- Build with AI
Ali Rizvi
Co-founder & CEO
Founding team and Chief Growth Officer at Nukta, a $22M PE-backed digital newsroom scaled to 200 staff across three countries (1B views in 12 months, acquired by ARY). Built Alibaba’s live-commerce business in South Asia from zero, an Effie Gold winner. Began in journalism at Dawn and Pakistan State TV, and founded Profit magazine. LSE, BSc Business Management.
Andre Teow
Co-founder & CPO
Co-founded Tiki, India’s #2 short-video platform, scaled 0 to 30M monthly users in 24 months at 75% retention. Founder of Blue Bolt Labs, an AI product studio, and of Build with AI, South East Asia’s most active AI builder community (sponsored by OpenAI, Anthropic, and Vercel). Ex-Rocket Internet. Stanford GSB executive education; BA Economics, University of Waikato.
Advisor
Umair Masoom
Founder of Myco, one of South Asia’s largest OTT platforms (~10M monthly active users, exclusive cricket and football rights). Group Head of Marketing at Gargash Enterprises. Brings GCC and South Asia distribution.
Built where the industry is moving fastest.
MENA digital media is among the fastest-growing publisher markets in the world. The UAE digital media market alone is forecast to grow at a 12.2% CAGR through 2030, and Saudi digital formats are growing at 26%. Dubai sits at the center: the buyers are here, the audiences are next door, and the regulatory environment is the most operator-friendly in the region.
Engineering runs from Kuala Lumpur. KL gives us senior engineering talent at competitive cost, in a timezone that overlaps both Dubai and South Asia. The customer base is global; the back office is wherever the best engineers are.
Three sentences we hold to.
Editorial judgment scales with humans. Production scales with machines.
— Belief 1 Verification is not a feature. It’s the foundation.
— Belief 2 Speed without rigor is noise. Rigor without speed is irrelevance. Both, or neither.
— Belief 3
We hire for shipping velocity, ownership, and proximity to the customer.
We don’t have a marketing team. This site is run by A47 itself.
Want to talk?
Book a 30-minute call with Ali. We respond inside 12 hours, every working day.