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In our 5 minutes with profiles, MEF members talk about their business, their aspirations for the future and the wider mobile industry.

This week, Co-Founder & CEO Alexander Moskotin introduces afina.

What does Afina do?

Afina transforms telecom subscriber monetization with a privacy-first approach.  Imagine relevant offers, delivered seamlessly via SMS, RCS, voice, or other channels—offers you actually want.  Afina uses sophisticated AI to understand user preferences without mining personal data, delivering timely and useful promotions that feel like helpful suggestions, not intrusive ads.  We’re not just showing ads; we’re empowering operators to create engaging subscriber experiences that drive revenue.

When did you launch and what growth have you seen?

When we launched in Q3 2023, skeptics said “ethical monetization” was a fantasy. Twelve months later:

  •  4,000+ global partners
  •  35+ countries live
  •  0 spam complaints across all campaigns
  •  25% higher engagement than industry benchmarks

The market voted with its contracts – our growth proves users prefer this approach.

What are your main goals?

Let’s be honest: advertising is rarely welcome. People don’t wake up hoping to see more ads. But we believe there’s a better way — one that doesn’t pretend to be friendly, but actually earns trust. Afina isn’t here to ‘disrupt’ or ‘personalize’ in the vague sense. We’re building a platform that listens before it speaks. That waits for the right moment. That knows when not to show up.

We’re not trying to trick users into clicking. We’re trying to make offers so relevant, and so timely, that they actually feel useful. That’s how you stop being a spammer — and start being a partner in someone’s everyday choices.

On top of that, we want to become the #1 UCaaS provider in Western Europe. It’s an ambitious target, but we’re making progress through a combination of organic growth and strategic acquisitions. Gamma’s European presence is expanding, and we’re making our voices heard by challenging the main providers in Germany and other key markets.

Where do you see your company in three years’ time?

At afina we aim to:

  •  Partner with 50+ tier-1 operators worldwide
  •  Process 1B+ messages daily
  •  Users voluntarily opting into messages because they’re actually helpful & enabled 1B+ users to experience advertising as a service
  •  Operators praised for their networks rather than blamed for spam
  •  Partnered with forward-thinking operators to create $500M+ in shared value a year

What aspect of mobile is most exciting to you right now?

Mobile is the most personal screen people own. And with the right triggers — like network behavior, app activity, or location — you can stop guessing and start helping. That’s what excites us. Not more messages, but better timing. Less noise, more relevance.

What’s the most critical issue that will hit mobile within the next 12 months?

Balancing monetization with user experience as operators must choose:

  • Keep being spam pipes and lose users
  • Adopt surgical AI approach

There is no third option.

Apart from your own, which mobile companies are the ones to watch in the year ahead?

We’re not the only ones who see this shift coming. Telcos like Turkcell, with its SuperApp strategy, are turning customer data into real-time relevance — offering loans, shopping, even content, all from a telecom-rooted experience. Jio is reshaping what a telecom can be in India — not just a network, but an ecosystem. And players like Orange and Telefónica are quietly building platforms that prioritize consent, context, and trust — not just reach.

The mobile ecosystem is at a crossroads. We can keep bombarding people until they tune out completely… or we can build something better. At afina, we’ve bet everything on the second path. The early results suggest it’s not just the right choice – it’s the smart one.

Alexander Moskotin

Co-Founder & CEO, afina

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