iROKO Partners secures a new round of financing totaling $8 million

Jason Njoku, founder and CEO, iROKO Partners

iROKO Partners, the world’s biggest online distributor and platform for Nigerian movies and music, has revealed that the company has secured a new round of financing totaling US$8 million. The financing is as result of investment by venture capitalist firms Tiger Global, Swedish firm Kinnevik and US-based firm, Rise Capital.

This brings the total amount of financing raised by iROKO Partners to US$21 million, making the young company one of the better funded Internet companies in Nigeria, and by extension West Africa.

According to iROKO Partners founder and CEO, Jason Njoku, the US$8 million investment by the 3 venture capitalist firms, Tiger Global, Kinnevik and Rise Capital will further fuel the company’s expansion and help realize iROKO Partners’ long term goal of becoming one of Africa’s pre-eminent Internet-based media companies.

To-date, the capital raised by the company has been used to acquire content, enhance its tech team and expand operations further into Africa, and open new operations in Europe and North America, and in the process developing the world’s largest online catalog of African content, with over 10,000 movies.

The newly acquired capital will be channeled towards 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 a more subscribed service.

At present, more than 50 percent of the company’s audience is located in the US and the UK, however, with the rising Internet penetration in Africa, the demand for home-grown multi-platform video content is rising fast.

iROKO Partners recently partnered with Panasonic to launch a Nollywood Smart TV App, thereby extending content offering to an increased customer base.