iROKO After a number of failed enterprises between 2005 and 2010, which included a
blog network, a T-shirt business and a
web design company, Njoku moved back home into his mother's house in Deptford. It was there that he came up with the idea of starting a
Nollywood online distribution business, "The West had
Hulu and
Netflix – Africa had nothing", notes Njoku. Having studied the industry from afar, he flew to
Lagos, thanks to the financial help of his best friend Bastian Gotter, a fellow University of Manchester graduate, and started purchasing the online licenses of Nollywood movies. He worked from a two-bedroom apartment in
Festac Town, Lagos, and struck a deal with
YouTube in Germany to be the official channel partner for Nollywood company. In 2010, Njoku and his former partner Bastian Gotter launched NollywoodLove, a YouTube channel, which was profitable within two months of launch. That same year, thanks to an article by
Sarah Lacy who worked at the time for
Tech Crunch, NollywoodLove caught the attention of US-based
venture capital fund
Tiger Global who were interested in expanding their reach in emerging markets. Series A investment of $3 million was secured from
Tiger Global in 2010 and the company launched a stand-alone video-on-demand movie platform,
iROKOtv, on 1 December 2011. The site drew in viewers from 178 countries around the world. Njoku and Gotter have since gone on to raise an additional $22 million from international VCs, with inclusion from Investment AB Kinnevik and RISE Capital and have used the investment to build an extensive film catalog of 5,000 movies, launch offices in Lagos, New York, and London and invest in improving the company's technology resource. Iroko has gone to make other funding investment totaling $40 million In 2015, Njoku decided to focus the company's attention on an
Android mobile app, rather than a streaming platform to combat broadband infrastructure problems that Africa poses. In July 2012, he was cited by
Forbes Africa as one of the 'Ten Young African Millionaires to Watch'. On 29 August 2013, Njoku was named as the CNBC All Africa Business Awards Young Leader of the Year for West Africa. He has also been named as one of Fast Company's Top 1000 Most Creative People in Business.
Spark In August 2013, alongside his business partners Bastian Gotter and Mary Remmy Njoku, Njoku launched a $2 million investment vehicle for Lagos-based Internet start-ups 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, and 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. In 2015, Jason Njoku in a blog post officially announced they're letting go of four startups considered failed businesses: Bus.com.ng (an online bus ticketing service ), Insured.ng (an insurance comparison platform), Giddimint.com.ng (an online fashion store) and Christians.ng, an online dating platform for Christians. == Personal life ==