iROKOtv, the Africa-based movie platform for Nigerian movies, known colloquially as ‘Nollywood’, has announced a funding round of $8-million, led by existing investor Tiger Global, with further participation from Sweden-based Kinnevik and introducing new investor to this round, US-based Rise Capital.
This brings the total raised to $21-million, making iROKOtv arguably one of the most well-funded Internet companies in Africa today.
iROKOtv is the leading Video-on-Demand (VOD) platform for African content and following the announcement of the $8-million investment, the company will continue to focus its attention on growing traffic, content curation and building a platform-agnostic distribution system for its 1-million monthly users.
To-date, the capital raised by iROKOtv has been used to acquire content, expand the London-based tech team, develop mobile websites and applications and open offices in London, New York and Johannesburg, alongside the company’s Lagos headquarters. iROKOtv now holds the world’s largest online catalogue of African content, with more than 5 000 movies.
The new capital will be channeled at building and transitioning the company’s audience from a primarily diaspora base to an African base, as well as migrating from a largely ad supported model to more subscription service.
Currently, 50% of iROKOtv’s audience is located in the UK and US alone, but with the continent coming online, demand for homegrown multi-platform video content is rising fast. There will also be a renewed focus on monetising iROKOtv’s catalogue through its SVOD service, iROKOtv PLUS, as well as through its strategic distribution partnerships with global airlines and TV channels.
Jason Njoku, CEO and co-founder of iROKOtv, says: “The $8-million raised by Tiger Global, Kinnevik and Rise Capital will further fuel our expansion and help us to realise our long term goal of becoming one of Africa’s preeminent media companies.
“We started life three years ago as a Nollywood content aggregator on a YouTube channel and today we find ourselves with a VC-backed dedicated VOD platform, watched in 178 countries around the world, with 1-million unique visitors a month. These metrics were achieved with hard work from a great international team and today’s news allows us to continue in the same vein and accelerate our growth.”
Bastian Gotter, COO and co-founder, adds: “We have forged a niche in African movie programming and captured people’s imagination in terms of bringing previously unobtainable yet popular content, loved by millions, to a global audience on an awesome platform. This additional capital allows us to consolidate our position as VOD market leaders for Africa, invest in tech, content and infrastructure and, importantly, we are now in a position to become profitable by 2015, which is an extraordinary feat for any start-up, let alone an African VOD one like ours.”
