Japanese Venture Capital, Samurai Incubate, has launched an $18.6 million fund for African startups, dubbed the Samurai Africa 2nd General Partnership fund.
According to the firm, the fund was oversubscribed as it initially targeted just $18.4 million. Additionally, a total of 54 investors joined as limited partners (investors of VC firms), including the Toyota Tsusho Corporation,
When Samurai first announced the fund back in January 2020, its ticket size ranged between $50,000 and $500,000. For pre-seed to seed rounds, startups got about $200,000. For pre-Series A and Series A rounds, startups got about $500,000. However, upon completing the fund, Samurai Incubate is extending the maximum amount of investment to $800,000.
According to the firm, plans are underway to invest in 30 to 40 new companies at the pre-seed and seed stage, and also follow-up pre-Series A and Series A investments in 7 to 10 existing portfolio companies. These are startups in the fintech, insurtech, logistics, healthtech, consumer and commerce, energy, agritech, mobility and entertainment sectors.
Since August 2018, Samurai Incubate has invested $2.5 million in 20 African startups. The six from this second fund include microfinance services for car lenders FMG; Eden Life, a tech-enabled home service startup; energy startup Shyft Power Solutions; online loan marketplace Evolve Credit; freight forwarding company Oneport; and online grocery platform Pricepally.
Although most of Samurai’s companies are from Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, it has announced plans to join Egypt to the list of countries it will target.
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