Japan’s Uncovered Fund Launches $15m Africa-focused fund, Announces 5 New Investments

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Uncovered Fund founded by young Japanese investor Takuma Terakubo, has announced that it has established a $15 million fund to back early-stage African startups.

It has secured funds from institutional investors as well as Japanese footballer Keisuke Honda’s KSK Angel Fund.

The VC firm which was founded in 2019 said then that its ticket size is between $50,000 and $500,000 in African startups in seed and Series A stages. Now, along with the new fund, it has unveiled its first five investments.

Before Uncovered Fund, Terakubo announced the launch of his sub-Saharan Africa-focused Leapfrog Ventures. It has since been rebranded into the Samurai Africa Fund, and its management has been taken over by Samurai Incubate, the Tokyo-based VC firm that Terakubo previously worked for.

The fund is expected to invest in early-stage startups in Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and other East African countries, as well as large markets such as Nigeria and South Africa.

It will be focused on retail, fintech, healthtech, logistics, Mobility as a Service (MaaS), agritech/foodtech, and smart city verticals.

The fund also announced investments in five companies:

• SkyGarden (Kenya), helping retail stores digitize offline and online sales
• Rxall (Nigeria), building a safe drug distribution infrastructure leveraging a fake drugs detection system
• LipaLater (Kenya), enabling postpaid payments at e-commerce stores in East African countries
• Gozem (Togo), offering a car-hailing service in West African countries.
• Send (Nigeria), a digital freight forwarder and customs broker, expected to grow as the AfCFTA (African Continental Free Trade Area) was launched last month