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Japan’s Leapfrog Ventures invests in Kenya-based sales bot and SaaS startup Biashara

Masaru Ikeda Masaru Ikeda
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See the original story in Japanese. Three months have passed since we first covered Leapfrog Ventures which started invested in the Sub-Saharan African market, but we just got another news update for their investment from Nairobi, Kenya. The firm announced today that it has invested $50,000 US in Kenya-based Biashara Viral Gains, which develops the BiasharaBot social commerce solution suite consisting of a messenger bot and SaaS (service as a service) to help merchants streamline their sales management processes. Biashara was selected in April as one of top three startups at the Demo Day of Pangea, the Norwegian startup accelerator conducting their programs in Kenya, Nigeria and Egypt. And then the Kenyan startup successfully raised $50,000 US from the accelerator followed by Leapfrog Ventures’ investment at this time. Derived from ‘Sell’ & ‘Buy’ in Arabic, Biashara is a Swahili word meaning business. In Africa, e-commerce customers sometimes receive wrong or counterfeit items since logistic systems and customer relationship management efforts are sloppy. To address this issue, Biasharabot offers a messenger bot helping merchants encourage potential customers purchased items through recommendations from their friends and celebrities, in addition to sales management SaaS solution enabling order receiving, delivery management and payments acceptance….

Moses Korir, Co-founder of Biashara Viral Gains, delivered his pitch at the recent Pangea startup accelerator Demo Day.
Image credit: Biahara Viral Gains

See the original story in Japanese.

Three months have passed since we first covered Leapfrog Ventures which started invested in the Sub-Saharan African market, but we just got another news update for their investment from Nairobi, Kenya. The firm announced today that it has invested $50,000 US in Kenya-based Biashara Viral Gains, which develops the BiasharaBot social commerce solution suite consisting of a messenger bot and SaaS (service as a service) to help merchants streamline their sales management processes.

Biashara was selected in April as one of top three startups at the Demo Day of Pangea, the Norwegian startup accelerator conducting their programs in Kenya, Nigeria and Egypt. And then the Kenyan startup successfully raised $50,000 US from the accelerator followed by Leapfrog Ventures’ investment at this time.

Derived from ‘Sell’ & ‘Buy’ in Arabic, Biashara is a Swahili word meaning business. In Africa, e-commerce customers sometimes receive wrong or counterfeit items since logistic systems and customer relationship management efforts are sloppy. To address this issue, Biasharabot offers a messenger bot helping merchants encourage potential customers purchased items through recommendations from their friends and celebrities, in addition to sales management SaaS solution enabling order receiving, delivery management and payments acceptance.

BiasharaBot
Image credit: Biashara Viral Gains

Customer acquisition efforts and sales management activities are totally different processes, but the messenger bot engages customers and receives their orders so that it can connects these processes to make a seamless workflow from order receipt to delivery monitoring. Integrated with Kenyan mobile payments system M-Pesa and local on-demand delivery service Sendy, the suite allows merchants to call a driver by one-click to deliver items to customers.

Using the funds raised at this time, Biashara plans to develop and release plug-ins for major e-commerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce and Magento, while attracting up to 1,000 paying merchants. Not to mention service expansion in Kenya, the company espouses an ambition to advance in Nigeria, South Africa and among other highly-populated Sub-Saharan African markets in the future.

Leapfrog Ventures CEO Takuma Terakubo told The Bridge that our recent coverage about Exuus’ funding encouraged Biashara to get in touch with Terakubo for investment. We were told that the deal was secured in as early as two weeks since the first appointment. We are looking forward to bring you another news update around Leapfrog Ventures soon.

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

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Leapfrog Ventures makes first investment in Africa, backs regional FinTech startup Exuus

Masaru Ikeda Masaru Ikeda
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See the original story in Japanese. Our readers may recall that we have covered Takuma Terakubo, formerly working for Tokyo-based startup incubator Samurai Incubate, has established Leapfrog Ventures for the purpose of investing in East African seed-stage startups. We have just got an update from the company  regarding their first investment. The firm unveiled that it has invested $50,000 US in Exuus, the startup offering credit infrastructure for unbanked people in Rwanda and  neighboring countries. Leapfrog Ventures is the sole investor in this round. Founded in 2014 by National University of Rwanda graduate Shema Steve, Exuus has been offering a wallet service and lending credit platform for unbanked communities in rural areas, called Save. With the funding at this time, the startup intends to expand beyond Rwanda into other neighboring countries like Kenya, Uganda and Zambia. In East Africa including Rwanda, community-based savings groups have been appearing all across the region. Having digital technology adopted by these groups enables Save group members to invest using mobile devices as well as to borrow money from lending services by leveraging the credit scoring feature. An Exuus study says there are as many as 36,571 savings groups in Rwanda alone. In addition to…

A female using Save.
Image credit: Exuus

See the original story in Japanese.

Our readers may recall that we have covered Takuma Terakubo, formerly working for Tokyo-based startup incubator Samurai Incubate, has established Leapfrog Ventures for the purpose of investing in East African seed-stage startups. We have just got an update from the company  regarding their first investment.

The firm unveiled that it has invested $50,000 US in Exuus, the startup offering credit infrastructure for unbanked people in Rwanda and  neighboring countries. Leapfrog Ventures is the sole investor in this round.

A shot of a typical savings group in Rwanda where you can see ledgers for deposit and withdrawal records. Exuus wants to digitalize these using mobile devices.
Image credit: Exuus

Founded in 2014 by National University of Rwanda graduate Shema Steve, Exuus has been offering a wallet service and lending credit platform for unbanked communities in rural areas, called Save. With the funding at this time, the startup intends to expand beyond Rwanda into other neighboring countries like Kenya, Uganda and Zambia.

Shema Steve, Founder and CEO of Exuus

In East Africa including Rwanda, community-based savings groups have been appearing all across the region. Having digital technology adopted by these groups enables Save group members to invest using mobile devices as well as to borrow money from lending services by leveraging the credit scoring feature.

An Exuus study says there are as many as 36,571 savings groups in Rwanda alone. In addition to Rwanda, Exuus targets other Sub-Saharan African countries with many unbanked and low-income individuals.

In addition to helping savings groups avoid trouble upon lending and borrowing money among members by objectively monitoring their credit scores, the platform allows them to raise money from external resources like financial institutions by sharing the data. Even non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can utilize the data to find out what kind of aid is needed in a specific region.

Banks collaborating with the Save platform can reach out to potential customers and explore credit needs without establishing branches or rolling out ATMs which are costly in terms of performance in poorly populated areas.

Leapfrog Ventures tells us that they are currently exploring other opportunities to invest in prominent startups in the region. We’ll keep you updated as to their next investment.

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

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Young Japanese investor launches $4.5M seed fund for startups in Sub-Saharan Africa

SCORE 1,250 Masaru Ikeda Masaru Ikeda
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See the original story in Japanese. Similar to Singapore that has won a place as a startup hub in the entire Southeast Asian region, we recently reported in a coverage of Transform Africa Summit that Rwanda wants to become one in the Sub-Saharan African region. And now, there’s one young Japanese who has moved here to start fostering local startups. He is Takuma Terakubo who previously worked for Tokyo-based startup incubator Samurai Incubate. Terakubo revealed this time around that he has founded Leapfrog Ventures, a joint venture with Samurai Incubate, to invest in seed-stage startups of Eastern Africa, centered on Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. The fund is worth 500 million yen (approximately $4.5 million), with planned investment up to $50,000 in each of about 80 startups. The company’s name is derived from Leapfrogging, which is often seen in the Next Billion market these days. The fund’s targeted verticals include logistics, finance, healthcare, agriculture and energy-related businesses. Terakubo is serving JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) in Rwanda as an ICT incubator for the organization’s innovation ecosystem strengthening project, in addition to having built solid relationships with Rwandan governmental agencies and VC firms/accelerators in neighboring countries. He intends to deal with…

Takuma Terakubo (left)
Image credit: Leapfrog Ventures

See the original story in Japanese.

Similar to Singapore that has won a place as a startup hub in the entire Southeast Asian region, we recently reported in a coverage of Transform Africa Summit that Rwanda wants to become one in the Sub-Saharan African region. And now, there’s one young Japanese who has moved here to start fostering local startups. He is Takuma Terakubo who previously worked for Tokyo-based startup incubator Samurai Incubate.

Terakubo revealed this time around that he has founded Leapfrog Ventures, a joint venture with Samurai Incubate, to invest in seed-stage startups of Eastern Africa, centered on Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. The fund is worth 500 million yen (approximately $4.5 million), with planned investment up to $50,000 in each of about 80 startups. The company’s name is derived from Leapfrogging, which is often seen in the Next Billion market these days.

Terakubo joined Q&A session at the Face the Gorillas reality show at Transform Africa Summit in May.
Image credit: Kozue Ishii

The fund’s targeted verticals include logistics, finance, healthcare, agriculture and energy-related businesses. Terakubo is serving JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) in Rwanda as an ICT incubator for the organization’s innovation ecosystem strengthening project, in addition to having built solid relationships with Rwandan governmental agencies and VC firms/accelerators in neighboring countries. He intends to deal with prominent local startups to invest in leveraging these vast networks. He is expected to be based at kLab, a renowned co-working space in the Rwandan capital, plus at other locations.

In addition to making massive investments in local startups, Leapfrog Ventures wants to foster entrepreneurs by leveraging the region’s unique demographics that the younger generation accounts for the vast majority. By forming Tech SandBox in cooperation with the Rwandan Government, the company wants to create open innovation opportunities between Japan and Rwanda so that Japanese companies can easily conduct PoC (proof-of-concept) tests without concern about regulations.

Partnerships with VCs/accelerators in Africa
Image credit: Leapfrog Ventures

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Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

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