Co-founder and seed investor of African digital entertainment company Iroko, Bastian Gotter, has announced he is leaving the company, in order to work with and invest in startups across Africa.
Iroko was founded in 2010, with Gotter putting up US$150,000 seed capital in return for a 50 per cent stake in the business.
When the company secured Series A funding in 2012, Gotter took up the positions of chief operating officer (COO) and chief financial officer (CFO) at the company.
Together with Iroko co-founder Jason Njoku, Gotter also set up investment platform Spark, which invests in and works with technology startups in Nigeria.
Gotter said his work in supporting and building startups is his primary passion, and as such he has decided to leave Iroko in order to further pursue this avenue.
“My departure is bittersweet; naturally, I’m sad to leave the company that has been central to my life for so long, but I couldn’t be more excited to embark on a new journey, searching for and building up the next wave of truly exciting African tech companies,” he says.
“I leave Iroko in the knowledge that the company has a strong vision and a solid management team to execute it. Iroko’s relentless focus on riding the macro trends of high quality local content and mobile in Africa, will drive it become a massive consumer success and I’m proud to have been there from the start.”
Iroko chief executive officer (CEO), Njoku, thanked Gotter for having “put his money where my mouth was”.
“Everyone at Iroko, the board, and our investors, thank him for his unswerving commitment to helping build Iroko, and we wish him all the very best on his new journey. The companies he goes on to work with and invest in will find an experienced, dedicated and shrewd partner,” Njoku adds.
Corporate finance practitioner Lauren Miller will replace Gotter as CFO working out of Iroko’s London office.
