2020 is already beginning to look bright for African startups. Startups who dust up their pitch decks early enough may be able to get enough funding to drive their ventures. The latest fund for the continent’s startup ecosystem is from the Japanese Venture Capital firm Samurai Incubate Africa which has announced the launch of their second Africa focussed fund — Samurai Africa Fund 2nd General Partnership. The new fund of USD 18.250 Mn (JPY 2 Bn) will focus especially on startups based in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.

“I’ve seen a huge potential of startups in Africa and would like to keep contributing to the growth of African startup ecosystem, ” Rena Yoneyama, Managing Partner, Samurai Incubate Africa said. 

Here Is All You Need To Know

• The ticket size for investments, for this fund, will range between USD 50 K to 500 K for startups developing solutions for FinTech / insureTech, logistics, Medtech / healthcare, retail & e-commerce, agritech, transport & mobility, and entertainment sectors.
• The previous fund of Samurai Incubate Africa made 18 seed-stage investments under the name of Leapfrog Ventures in Africa during 2018 -2019. The USD 4.5 Mn fund actively rolled out equity money in startups based out of Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, South Africa, Ghana and Nigeria.
• Particularly, the fund invested invested $50 000 in Kenyan startup Biasharabot in 2018.
• Through the second fund, Samurai Incubate would fund ventures at seed and Series A stage.
• Leapfrog Ventures founder and CEO Takuma Terakubo, in an interview in 2018, said he aimed to invest in 200 African startups by 2020.

Read also: Startups And SMEs In Somalia Get A New $10 Million Fund

About The Samurai Incubate Africa

Terakubo founded Leapfrog Ventures in May in a joint venture with Japanese startup incubator Samurai Incubate. In 2019, the Leapfrog Ventures changed its name to Samurai Incubation Africa Inc.

According to Terakubo, Samurai hopes to establish a community of 200 startups which will “incubate the whole continent” and help it solve its problems.

 Terakubo added that in addition, he intends to connect this startup community with Japanese tech companies.

In 2018 the fund worked in cooperation with the Rwandan government on a Tech SandBox initiative which will see Japanese tech companies collaborate with African startups.

How To Apply To The Fund

Click here.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award winning writer.
He could be contacted at udohrapulu@gmail.com