Co-founder and original seed investor of iROKOtv, Bastian Gotter, has announced that he is leaving the company with immediate effect.
His replacement, Lauren Miller, is taking up the role of CFO from the company’s London office.
iROKOtv was created when Gotter seed-invested in an idea by his friend, Jason Njoku, to create a company to sell African movies online.
Together, the two built iROKO from a 2010 YouTube channel start-up to a $33million venture capital-backed pan-African entertainment and tech powerhouse brand.
It is globally the largest licensor and the leading distributor of Nollywood movies (both English and Yoruba) online.
Speaking to Forbes on his time at iROKO and leaving, Gotter said, “Over the last five years, iROKO has grown from a one-bedroom pipe dream to a multi-million dollar global media brand. The company has seen so much change, and job roles have gone from being ‘all hands on deck’ to highly specialised. I morphed into the role of CFO but that was never my ambition, I was just good with numbers. So at the beginning of 2016, Jason and I started to look for a seasoned CFO to come and join the iROKO family.
“In terms of timing, it feels like I do things in five year blocks. I traded oil for five years, then have been at iROKO for five years and think of my next move with a five year time horizon. With iROKO where it is today, and the fact that I’ve become more and more focused on the start-ups I’ve invested in and worked with, it seemed like the right time to make the transition.”
Gotter has an enviable track record of investing in successful Nigerian tech start-ups, such as Hotels.ng and ToLet.com.ng.
