Before Jason Njoku founded iRoko TV with his partner, Sebastian Gotter, in 2012, Nollywood was doing relatively well but was falling short when it came to its availability of movies on the internet. Seeing that there was a consequential need to be filled, Jason Njoku, who was living in faraway London at the time, boarded the next flight to Nigeria. Little did he know that this journey would result in the creation of Africa’s largest movie streaming service and make him an industry leader.
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Indeed, Jason’s move to Nigeria proved productive. His first step was to reach out to strike deals with local movie producers and acquire license rights to distribute their movies. He launched iRoko TV originally as Nollywoodlove, the first major YouTube channel to offer full-length Nollywood movies. In no time, Nollywoodlove was attracting over a million views from more than 200 countries worldwide.
After the platform had gained ground, it caught the attention of New York private equity firm, Tiger Global Management, which invested approximately $10 million into Nollywoodlove. This led to the launching of iRoko TV as a movie streaming service. Within three months of its launch, the service had attracted over half a million views. Today, iRoko TV has over 5000 movies in its catalogue. It was dubbed “Netflix of Africa” for the impact it has had on Nollywood movies. The service has diversified into ROK TV, a Nigerian film production company, and Iroko X, a creative platform for filmmakers and musicians.
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Jason has been featured on Forbes, CNN, CNBC, BET, Techcrunch, and many more. Asides from his passion for entertainment, Jason is big on building startups. This was what motivated him to launch spark.ng, an angel investing company, in 2013, that has catered to startups like Hotels.ng, Paystack, Tolet.com.ng, Ogaventure, and more. Jason describes himself as a “modern-day capitalist”. With over 50,000 followers, Jason’s Twitter account is a gem for entrepreneurs who are just starting out and seeking guidance.
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