Nigerian based Entertainment and internet TV platform iROKO, has this week announced it has signed multiple deals totaling $19m, both in content development and in capital funding from Kinnevik AB, its existing investor and French media giant CANAL+ to scale its operations and expand aggressively across the continent.
As part of this deal, Jacques du Puy, President of Canal+ Overseas will join the iROKO board.iROKO will use the cash to bolster its local content financing and production, as well as its product and engineering teams in Lagos and New York. The firm aims to produce at least 300 hours of original content in 2016, and double it by 2018.
In a statement, Jason Njoku, CEO and Co-founder of iROKO said: “The challenges surrounding mobile TV in Africa are mighty, but not insurmountable. It’s human to be entertained and connect over community and we are obsessed with creating Africa’s largest community around local content. We have always been crazily bold in our ambitions to bring the content closer to viewers and build a truly frictionless and inclusive entertainment experience. Today’s news improves those odds.”
Nollywood is the world’s second largest film industry in terms of output, employs one million people and constitutes 1.04% of the Nigeria’s GDP. iROKO, the home of Nollywood , has previously raised $25m from international investors, including Tiger Global, Kinnevik and RISE Capital.
With this raise, the firm will be able to compete well with Netflix which launched in Nigeria and other countries in Africa as well as help iROKO double up its content offerings and expand to other territories. iROKO holds distribution deals with Canal+, BA, Emirates, Nollywood TV and Lebara and has two Linear TV channels on Africa’s Star Times.Mobile phone subscriptions in Africa are almost at 1 billion and by 2019, it is predicted that smartphone handsets, with which viewers can watch content, will make up 73% of the continent’s devices.
Fabrice Faux, CFO of Canal+ Overseas said: “We are proud to partner for the scale-up in French-Speaking Africa, with clear ambitions and the means to reach them.”
- TechMoran