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Transform Africa Summit: How Japan can get involved in Rwandan startup ecosystem

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See the original story in Japanese. This article is a part of series of covering Transform Africa Summit 2018 Transform Africa Summit (TAS) 2018 was held in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, over two days from May 7th to 8th. 21 countries mainly in sub-Saharan Africa participate in Smart Africa, the organizer of this event aiming to encourage the ICT-driven economy in Africa led by Rwanda. Japan Pavilion was set by 20 Japanese organizations including large enterprises or startups. Japan and Rwanda have close business relationships; Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) develops ICT Innovation Ecosystem Strengthening Project in Rwanda, and the cities of Kobe and Kigali are in a cooperation relationship. Other than Rwanda, only Japan and Estonia set up their own pavilions. Japan Pavilion had about 80 Japanese staffers and stood out among the others. As Chinese companies have the initiative in every country in Africa, none of them can be seen in the context of innovation or startup. In addition to Japan, UK (Rwanda participates in the British Commonwealth) and Israel play a important part to drive a startup ecosystem in this country. Relationship between Japan and Rwanda in startup ecosystem On the first day of the event,…

Kigali Convention Center, the main venue of Transform Africa Summit 2018
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

See the original story in Japanese.
This article is a part of series of covering Transform Africa Summit 2018

Transform Africa Summit (TAS) 2018 was held in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, over two days from May 7th to 8th. 21 countries mainly in sub-Saharan Africa participate in Smart Africa, the organizer of this event aiming to encourage the ICT-driven economy in Africa led by Rwanda.

Japan Pavilion was set by 20 Japanese organizations including large enterprises or startups. Japan and Rwanda have close business relationships; Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) develops ICT Innovation Ecosystem Strengthening Project in Rwanda, and the cities of Kobe and Kigali are in a cooperation relationship.

Japan Pavilion in TAS2018
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

Other than Rwanda, only Japan and Estonia set up their own pavilions. Japan Pavilion had about 80 Japanese staffers and stood out among the others. As Chinese companies have the initiative in every country in Africa, none of them can be seen in the context of innovation or startup. In addition to Japan, UK (Rwanda participates in the British Commonwealth) and Israel play a important part to drive a startup ecosystem in this country.

Relationship between Japan and Rwanda in startup ecosystem

Jean de Dieu Rurangirwa (Rwandan Minister of ICT, center), Masahiko Tominaga (Japanese Vice-Minister for Policy Coordination of Internal Affairs and Communications, right) and Takayuki Miyashita (Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Rwanda, left) show a memorandum regarding cooperative relationship between Japan and Rwanda.
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

On the first day of the event, Masahiko Tominaga (Japanese Vice-Minister for Policy Coordination of Internal Affairs and Communications) and Jean de Dieu Rurangirwa (Rwandan Minister of ICT) signed a memorandum regarding cooperative relationship in ICT field between the governments of Japan and Rwanda.

JICA had financially supported the establishment of technology hubs such as kLab (2012) or FABLAB (2016) in Kigali City. About 100 entrepreneurs or investors bases their activities on these hubs and had turned out dozens of startups. On the other hand, more than 40 Rwandan students are on exchange at Kobe Institute of Computing (KIC) Graduate School of Information Technology utilizing the Japanese scholarship.

Japanese space / satellite startups such as Axelspace or Infostellar participated in the event. Intelligent Space Systems Laboratory from the University of Tokyo concluded an agreement on partnership with Smart Africa.
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

On the second day of the event, KIC and the U.S.-based major drone developer Swift Engineering announced that they will establish a joint venture (JV) in Rwanda. KIC had been training ICT engineers by providing lectures on programing based on kLab, and will expand the range of its support activity through providing education of drone engineers or promotion of drone business, triggered by the JV establishment.

Kobe Institute of Computing Graduate School of Information Technology and Swift Engineering announces establishment of JV for education of drone engineers in Rwanda.
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

Rwanda is located in the highlands (here in Kigali is at an altitude of 1,500 meters) and has a rainy season, so that the daily utilization of drone is drawing attention in this country because of inadequate road condition out of urban areas. Through the investment into the Rwanda-based drone-driven medical distribution startup Zipline by the Japanese startup studio Mistletoe in 2016, the people involved in startup ecosystem recognized the high compatibility of Rwanda and drone business.

The author of this article plans to visit three sub-Saharan countries of Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya until next week and cover the present situation of the startup scene in these countries.

Jean de Dieu Rurangirwa (Rwandan Minister of ICT) and participants / staffers of Japanese companies / startups, Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, JICA and Embassy of Japan in Rwanda
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

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

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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