Except you’re just not a Nollywood aficionado, live under a rock or have been off the internet for a while, one of these two names should resonate “NollywoodLove” or “IrokoTV”. Both of those initiatives are owned by Nigerian entrepreneur; Jason Njoku of Iroko Partners, who in a swift mode of action acquired rights with ‘most’ Nollywood distributors to publish and distribute their content online worldwide. Its interesting to see how a company predominantly based in Nigeria has been able to attract foreign investment to work on a startup of this nature. Needless to say, Jason took advantage of a long open opportunity which is; the lack of a legal and available platform for the rest of the world to access Nollywood’s (third largest movie industry worldwide) movies over the internet. Thanks to IrokoTV, that’s now a possibility. IrokoTV and Jason himself have attracted a fair amount of attention from world renown Forbes Magazine as seen on the pieces below:
It is clear that Jason also has his eyes on the music industry as he has been rumored to have acquired 50% stake on Gbedu.fm; a similar startup focused on doing the same thing IrokoTV does but for African music. IrokoTV was last known to have over 500,000 subscribers since launch in December 2011 of which 5,000 of those are subscribed to the paid service which was launched just 2 months ago. IrokoTV currently has offices in Lagos, London and New York.
Like every other entrepreneur; Jason expressed his determination to succeed after a slew of failures as seen on his blog post on TechLoy back in 2011. As obvious, a lot has turned around for him since then. Here’s encouraging everyone who is smart and thinking through innovative and disruptive ideas; either afrocentric or globally value adding to take a shot at making it happen. As they say, it does not hurt to try. An idea is only an idea until it is executed. It could be referred to as; a seed.
Excerpt from Reuters:
Iroko Partners, an online distributor of African movies and music, has raised another $2 million in its latest round of funding from a Swedish venture capital group as it seeks to take the service to cable and satellite TV partners in the U.S. and Europe.
The Lagos, Nigeria-based company raised the funds from Sweden’s Kinnevik, an early investor in Groupon Inc. Iroko previously raised $8 million from U.S.-based hedge fund Tiger Global in April as investors in emerging markets seek to tap into one of the fastest growing movie businesses in the world.
The Lagos, Nigeria-based company raised the funds from Sweden’s Kinnevik, an early investor in Groupon Inc. Iroko previously raised $8 million from U.S.-based hedge fund Tiger Global in April as investors in emerging markets seek to tap into one of the fastest growing movie businesses in the world.
Kinnevik investments head, Henrik Persson, said his firm, which has invested in African telecoms, sees tremendous opportunity in African media and online services. “It has very low penetration and we see a really strong growth trend. He added: “A part of our investment philosophy is that we think that the perceived risk is higher than the real risk in this market..what people see as a lack of opportunity is a lack of supply.”
Iroko has focused on forming partnerships with most of Nigeria’s leading filmmakers for distribution on its own platform as well as with major partners like Google Inc’s YouTube.
Though the majority of Iroko’s operations are based in Lagos, it also has set up offices in London and New York.
Founder Jason Njoku said the majority of the company’s revenues come from users across the African Diaspora in the United States, Britain and Canada and other countries outside the continent.
The Nigerian movie industry is now widely acknowledged as the third largest after Hollywood and India’s Bollywood in terms of the number of movies produced. While so-called Nollywood movies are typically distributed within Nigeria and around the world on DVD or Video-CD discs, Njoku spotted a gap in the market to digitize the movies for online distribution. Most of the Web viewers have been in developed countries with fast-enough Internet traffic speeds to enable video streaming.
The company’s revenues are predominantly generated through advertising around the movies. But in July it launched a monthly subscription with the promise of earlier windows for fans to catch new films without advertising.
Since launching two weeks ago the subscription service Iroko TV has signed up just under 5,000 paying subscribers according to Njoku. It already had 560,000 registered users since the Iroko TV service launched in January.
Though the majority of Iroko’s operations are based in Lagos, it also has set up offices in London and New York.
Founder Jason Njoku said the majority of the company’s revenues come from users across the African Diaspora in the United States, Britain and Canada and other countries outside the continent.
The Nigerian movie industry is now widely acknowledged as the third largest after Hollywood and India’s Bollywood in terms of the number of movies produced. While so-called Nollywood movies are typically distributed within Nigeria and around the world on DVD or Video-CD discs, Njoku spotted a gap in the market to digitize the movies for online distribution. Most of the Web viewers have been in developed countries with fast-enough Internet traffic speeds to enable video streaming.
The company’s revenues are predominantly generated through advertising around the movies. But in July it launched a monthly subscription with the promise of earlier windows for fans to catch new films without advertising.
Since launching two weeks ago the subscription service Iroko TV has signed up just under 5,000 paying subscribers according to Njoku. It already had 560,000 registered users since the Iroko TV service launched in January.
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