Co-founder and CEO of iROKOtv
COUNTRY: NIGERIA
SECTOR: TECHNOLOGY / Movies
Many people have heard about IROKOTV most people even use the app and platform but they don’t know the brain behind it.
Jason Njoku is a Nigerian entrepreneur and he founded one of the most popular videos on-demand platforms for Nigerian and African movies
Jason Njoku: Early Life and Education
Jason was born and raised in Deptford, South East London along with his 3 sisters and his brother, by his mother herself, while she was working a full-time job in the National Health Service.
He attended school in London and then moved to a village in Nigeria from the age of 12 to 15. When he returned from Nigeria, he attended college to complete his A-Levels, before securing a place at The University of Manchester where he studied Chemistry. He graduated in 2005 with second-class upper honours.
Professional Life
Between the years 2005 to 2010, he tried a couple of businesses. He ran a blog network, but that went out of business, and within that same period, he also got involved in other things such as T-shirt business and web design, he also started a magazine shortly after he graduated from Manchester University. Unfortunately, for him, they all folded and he had no option but to move back to Deptford and start living with his mother.
He did not want to become a scientist so he decided to move into the business world and he decided to delve into movies because his mum who was in London at the time did not have access to Nollywood films.
This made him do more research and he found out there are many Africans like his mother who wanted to watch movies from their hometown or country but they had no access to them. However, there was nothing like Hulu or Netflix for the African market.
With the idea and no funds, neither did he have any means of raising funds through a loan because his bank account was not in a good shape. It was his best friend, Bastian Gotter, who saw what he was up to and decided to inject his money into the venture.
Jason Njoku got on a plane to Lagos and he met with film producers and other stakeholders, got the license he needed to run the business. He founded Nollywood love, which later became iroko partners and is now referred to as the Netflix of Africa.
Njoku and his business partner, Bastian Gotter have to raise $3 million from Tiger Global Company in 2010 and then $22 million from international venture capitals including Investment AB Kinnevik and RISE Capital. From then on, the company has ever kept growing and has remained the biggest streaming platform for African movies. In January 2017, Bastian Gotter left the company.
The company has now grown and there are other subsidiaries like IROKO X, ROk Studios, iROKO Global, iROKO Music.
Spark Investment
In 2013, Jason Njoku and his best friend turned partner Bastian Gotter launched a $2million investment vehicle for Lagos-based Internet start-ups, it was called spark.
The company initially invested in 11 companies, including a drinks distribution company called Drinks. Ng. A real estate and property online letting agency called ToLet.com.ng. In addition, a hotel room-booking site, called Hotels. Ng, which has gone on to raise $1.2 million in VC investment from EchoVC Pan-Africa Fund and Omidyar Network.
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Honours
In July 2012, Jason was cited by Forbes Africa as one of the ‘Ten Young African Millionaires to Watch, in the same year he recieved Entrepreneur of the Year (Technology) award at the Future Awards .
In 2013, Jason Njoku was named CNBC All Africa Business Awards Young Leader of the Year for West Africa. He was listed as Top 1000 Most Creative People in Business
In 2016 he also received an Outstanding Industry Achievement at West Africa Mobile Awards.
Net worth
Recently he revealed that his goal was to be worth $100 million before he clocks 40, and although his actual net worth is not known he has been said to be worth an estimate of $40 million.
(Sources: BellaNaija, Wikipedia, wealthresult )
