Tokyo-based venture capital firm Inclusion Japan has announced a fresh investment in Gebeya Inc., the SaaS-enabled Pan-African marketplace (ICJ). The additional investment intends to spur development and innovation to support Gebeya’s ongoing growth.
With the secretive strategic investment, Gebeya will go from a single, two-sided marketplace for software talent to a provider of marketplaces using a Marketplace-As-A-Service model.
Partech Ventures, Orange Ventures, and Consonance have given Gebeya a total of $4M in SEED funding since 2020. With the help of ICJ’s strategic Pre-Series A investment, Gebeya will be able to improve both the supply and demand sides of its target markets while also bolstering its product lineup, particularly its Marketplace-As-A-Service offering.
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“We are grateful for the opportunity to partner with ICJ and are confident that this investment will help us to take our company to new heights,” said Amadou Daffe, Gebeya’s CEO & Co-founder. “We are excited to see what the future holds and are committed to delivering the best possible products and services to our customers.”
Why The Investor Invested
“We are delighted to be investing in Gebeya,” said Yasuhiro Yoshizawa, Director, and Co-Founder at ICJ. “As a fund manager with a $100 million investment budget that will focus on the Africa region, I consider myself very fortunate to have been able to invest in Gebeya, which has the greatest potential in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
“ICJ has so far invested in two African-based startups, both in Ethiopia. Dodai, an e-mobility technology startup, is run by my fellow CEO Yuma whose vision and commitment to Africa have made ICJ consider the second investment into Gebeya. ICJ investment is quite strategic in building a strong bridge between Japan and Ethiopia regarding investment, knowledge transfer, and business development.” said Amadou Daffe, Gebeya’s CEO & Co-founder.
Under their ICJ No2 Fund, ICJ has so far made investments in 16 businesses. The fund’s first venture into the African talent market is the undisclosed investment.
A Look At What The Startup Does
Gebeya, a company with headquarters in Addis Abeba and offices in Kenya and Senegal, has been operating for six years. During that time, it has worked to create job opportunities for hundreds of working tech professionals, upskill them, and support entrepreneurs who want to introduce their own innovations.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard