Six African startups finalised for capital investment promotion program “Meet the Tôshikas”

The “Meet the Tôshikas” program, which gives Japanese investors an in-depth look at African startup ecosystems and offers promising African startups a path toward investment readiness, has selected six African tech startups as finalists.

With assistance from the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) and via its Africa Sustainable Finance Hub (ASFH), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) oversees the Meet the Tôshikas program.

With Zambia, Angola, and South Africa as its first stop, the program aims to attract more Japanese venture capitalists to Africa. Double Feather Partners provided assistance to UNDP in the design and execution of the program.

Six companies, two per country, have been awarded the chance to participate in a specially designed, three-month investment readiness support program. This is after 30 startups, 10 per country, were chosen to attend bootcamps. A US $20,000 catalytic grant will also be given to them, and they will participate in a one-week investor roadshow in Tokyo.

The two Angolan businesses that were chosen are Anda, which is formalizing the two-wheeler moto-taxi industry, and Mamboo, which offers efficient delivery services for FMCG and food items. Jobox, which assists recent graduates in finding their first jobs, and e-health startup Zoie Health are the representatives from South Africa.

Bosso, which is developing a platform to make house construction easier and less expensive, and AfriOnline Group, an integrated platform that enables customers to order from restaurants, supermarkets, and wholesalers, are Zambia’s representatives.

“We are extremely honored to be able to provide, through our benefactor METI, a unique opportunity for African startups to travel and meet Japanese investors and, on the other hand, Japanese investors to discover exciting startup venture opportunities from Africa sourced from a well-informed and deliberate ecosystem development approach that takes into account both the local potential growth and risk awareness through our network of field partners,” said Tomas Sales, private sector special advisor at the UNDP Africa Sustainable Finance Hub, which oversees the UNDP Meet the Tôshikas project.

“By combining a mature market such as South Africa with other nascent markets such as Angola and Zambia, we offer a fuller picture of the breadth and depth of early-stage opportunities to investors contemplating entry points for capital deployment in Africa.”