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The massively popular Nigerian film industry known as Nollywood started humbly about 20 years ago. Nollywood movies were shot as cheaply and as quickly as possible, then released straight to VHS. Nollywood caught on globally, and piracy was a major factor in the industry's growth, as copies of copies of Nollywood tapes sold on street corners from Lagos to Harlem. In the early 2000s, Nollywood distribution shifted from VHS to discs — and now, the movies are also beginning to stream online. Nollywood is known for melodramas and comedies about contemporary West African life. The popular film Blackberry Babes tells the story of young women in Lagos who are obsessed with smartphones. Nollywood stories riff on global trends and new technology. Behind the scenes, Nigerian entrepreneurs are interested in how these trends and technologies affect their business. One company called iROKOtv is making waves as Nollywood's largest digital distributor. The company's office is like a Silicon Valley startup downloaded into a nondescript Lagos neighborhood. Inside, the four-story compound is buzzing. Young people work on Apple computers in every room. "This is like the operating center, the nerve center," says iROKOtv CFO Seyi Yerokun, who left a job in finance to work here. "We have around 80 people. We have three offices: Lagos, we have New York, we just opened, and we have London." |
The company started with a quick idea from the now-CEO, Jason Njoku. "He just came up with this brilliant idea to stream Nollywood videos on YouTube," Yerokun says. The company has raised more than $8 million from U.S. venture capital funders, and the majority of their profits come from ads. Nigeria's Internet is slow, and most Nollywood fans in Africa don't have home access to YouTube. But iROKO is banking on the future of connectivity in Africa. And in the meantime, they keep their feet on the ground in Lagos and their marketing focus abroad. "We've realized that our market is in the diaspora, Africans in the diaspora," Yerokun says. "The West is our largest market." And that market has bigger needs than Nollywood movies. Michael Ugwu is in charge of extending iROKO's brand into music distribution. continued |
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