iROKO Partners closes on $2m funding

– iROKO Partners, the world’s leading online distributor of Nigerian movies and music, announces today that it has closed on a final round of funding, totaling US$2m, from Swedish-based Kinnevik, an early investor in Groupon. The additional investment will be used to grow iROKO Partners’ operations in New York, London and Lagos, as well as for purchasing more content for its platforms iROKOtv (movies) and iROKING (music).  The deal forms part of iROKO Partners’ second round of investment with US-based hedge fund, Tiger Global, in April 2012.

Jason Njoku, Founder & CEO of iROKO Partners commented: “We were already on our way towards becoming a world class company, but this investment is an awesome catalyst for us to increase our offering and solidify our market leadership.

“Kinnevik’s vast experience of working in emerging markets, combined with the momentum that iROKO Partners has gained in aggregating the African Diaspora is a winning combination. We’re extremely fortunate to have Kinnevik’s expertise on our board and we’re looking into new and innovative ways that we can bring incredible Nigerian entertainment to the world.”

Headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria and with offices in London and New York and a staff of almost 100, iROKO Partners was set up in December 2010 to bring Nigerian movies (Nollywood) and music to the African Diaspora. Its platform for showing Nollywood movies on demand, iROKOtv, has over 560,000 registered users and moved to a subscription-based model on 1 July 2012.

 Mia Brunell Livfors, President and CEO of Investment AB Kinnevik, said: “We are impressed by the growth and entrepreneurship of iROKO Partners. In two years it has become one of Africa’s top tech companies and a global leader in the distribution of Nigerian movies and music, one of the largest and fastest content categories in the world. The predicted growth for the sector is exciting and iROKO is delivering this content to a global audience and building an online entertainment hub.”

iROKOtv, has been groundbreaking in bringing over 5,000 Nollywood films to the African Diaspora, with viewers logging on from over 178 countries across the world.  To date, over 10 million hours of Nollywood movies have been watched on irokotv.com.

Launched in December 2011, iROKOtv is a subsidiary of iROKO Partners, Africa’s largest, legitimate distributor of Nigerian film and music entertainment with key partnerships with the likes of Facebook; iROKOtv viewers can login via their Facebook account, and is YouTube’s largest African partner. iROKO Partners is expected to increase its viewers to over 250 million in 2012 across its brands iROKOtv, iROKING (the “Spotify of Africa”), Nollywood Love and iROKtv, Africa’s answer to “E!”.

In April 2012 Tiger Global, a New York-based private equity and hedge fund run by an early investor in Facebook and Zynga, led two $4 million rounds of investment into iROKO Partners, in one of the largest ever fundraisings into a West African tech firm.  The funding will continue to be used to build iROKOtv’s library and to continue working directly with Nollywood production houses to buy the higher prices for the online licenses to Nollywood films which enables them to better monetize their content and to reinvest in making more, higher quality productions.

In May 2012, iROKOtv announced that from 1 July 2012, subscribers across the world will  have exclusive access to brand new and exclusive Nollywood releases, uploaded weekly for $5 per month and payable by SMS, PayPal or card.

www.irokotv.com | facebook.com/irokotv | @iROKOtv

Kinnevik

Kinnevik was founded in 1936 and thus embodies seventy-five years of entrepreneurship under the same group of principal owners. Kinnevik’s objective is to increase shareholder value, primarily through net asset value growth. The company’s holdings of growth companies are focused around seven comprehensive business sectors; Telecom & Services, Online, Media, Micro financing, Paper & Packaging, Agriculture and Renewable energy. Kinnevik has a long history of investing in emerging markets which has resulted in a considerable exposure to consumer sectors in these markets. Kinnevik plays an active role on the Boards of its holdings.

Kinnevik’s class A and class B shares are listed on the NASDAQ OMX Stockholm’s list for large cap companies, within the financial and real estate sector. The ticker codes are KINV A and KINV B.

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