A man living with his mother could not find Nollywood films online. So he went to Lagos and bought the rights.
After several failed ventures, the founder of iROKO started a YouTube channel for licensed Nigerian films. It led to 25 million dollars of investment and 5,000 titles.
iROKO’s origin is a small domestic frustration. Jason Njoku, living in London with his mother, found it hard to obtain Nollywood movies online for her. There was growing worldwide demand for Nigerian films but no legal way to watch them. He had made several attempts to set up companies after university, and each had failed.
Going to the source
He researched the Nollywood industry, noticed the lack of infrastructure for international distribution, flew to Lagos and bought online licences to films directly from the producers. He struck a deal with YouTube in Germany and streamed the movies for free on a channel called Nollywoodlove. It became popular and profitable quickly.
Backers and a platform
iROKO Partners was founded by Njoku and Bastian Gotter in December 2010, headquartered in London, and the iROKOtv website launched on 1 December 2011. The US hedge fund Tiger Global Management led two investment rounds totalling 8 million dollars, and a 2 million dollar round led by Kinnevik followed in July 2012. In total the company raised 25 million dollars, making it one of the best-funded West African internet companies.
iROKOtv is one of Africa’s first mainstream online movie streaming sites, with over 5,000 Nollywood titles.
It is a founder story that includes honest failure: earlier ventures did not work, and the one that did started with a very small problem.
