Fastest growing African start-ups (healthcare, and Edu-tech) wants investment from Japan

Abhay Tiwari
2 min readDec 9, 2021

Fastest growing African countries like Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, are calling for greater investment in the healthcare and edu-tech start-up business at the ongoing JAPAN-AFRICA strategic collaboration and growing interest of the Japanese investors.

In recent years you can see several online event and webinar has been organized by prominent bodies like JICA and JETRO in collaboration with local start-ups ecosystem institutions to discuss how to help African start-ups in Africa and attract investment from Japanese investors.

Several news interviews with officials prove the growing interest of the Japanese interest in Africa. Recently, an official from an investment fund in Africa called on Japanese companies for active investment in the field of health, education, life science, and other growing technology in African countries. The official said the field is drawing particular attention due to people’s rising awareness of health issues and the use of technology in education in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Although the investors showing great interest in African start-ups, but still a long way to go on this, several groups of Japanese companies operating in Africa reported that the annual amount of Japan’s investment in start-up companies in Africa dropped due to the pandemic in 2019–20.

In recent months one Japanese VaaS (Video as a software) start-up, GoToPitch.ai is playing a vital role in bridging the gap between Japanese investors and African start-ups, GoToPitch.ai has developed a unique video pitching technology where start-up founders and create their video pitches and directly apply to investors. It also provides technology to the investors, accelerators to search for potential start-ups and manage their cohorts respectively with the help of GoToPitch’s technology.

We can hope this start-up could be a great opportunity for both ends and play a vital role in boosting the growth of Africa start-ups with Japanese investment, which is expected to exceed ~2 billion USD, in the year 2022–23 which would be the largest ever.

The above-mentioned number has a high potential to increase very fast because there is a hidden role of geopolitical agenda which will bolster the speed of the Japanese investment in Africa start-ups, A senior official of Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry called for Japanese companies to expand their business base in Africa, saying their presence is weak compared with European and US companies.

So, we can hope for the best and more new development we can wish to happen in upcoming years.

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Abhay Tiwari

Social Entrepreneur | Nomura Research Institute | Tokyo Institute of Technology