‘Netflix of Africa’ iROKOtv Secures Further $8 Million in Funding

LONDON: iROKOtv, an African-based platform for Nollywood movies, has received $8 million in a new round of funding, which brings the start-up's total raised to $21 million.

iROKOtv, known as the "Netflix of Africa," is the top VOD platform for African content, with an online library that contains more than 5,000 films. The $8-million investment was led by Tiger Global, an existing investor. Additional capital came from Kinnevik in Sweden and Rise Capital in the U.S. The new funding will be used to help the company secure an African audience base and transition from an ad-supported model to a subscription service, among other plans.

Jason Njoku, the CEO and co-founder of iROKOtv, commented: "The $8 million raised by Tiger Global, Kinnevik and Rise Capital will further fuel our expansion and help us to realize 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, the COO and co-founder of iROKOtv, noted: "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."

Gotter continued: "Nazar's guidance as our first outside investor and active board member has significantly helped our development as a company, so we are excited to strengthen this relationship with him and the Rise Capital team. We look forward to continuing to benefit from their global investment expertise."

Nazar Yasin, the managing partner of Rise Capital, stated: "We are very pleased to participate in this round of financing alongside Kinnevik and my former colleagues at Tiger Global. Having worked with Jason, Bastian and the team since their early days, we at Rise Capital look forward to continuing to help them scale their content acquisition and distribution channels and secure their positioning as sub-Saharan Africa's largest and most impactful media company."

Mia Brunell Livfors, the president and CEO of Kinnevik, added: "This latest funding round for iROKOtv is testament to the fact that Kinnevik continues to support them on their journey to becoming one of Africa's most exciting and far-reaching media companies."