The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has announced the expansion of its flagship NINJA Accelerator to South Africa, focusing on strategic collaboration and open innovation between South African startups and Japanese companies.
The JICA NINJA Accelerator in South Africa – Open Innovation Edition invites promising startups to test commercial partnership potential with NEC XON, NEC Corporation’s majority-owned pan-African entity. JICA’s overall aim is to study collaboration models between local startups and Japanese companies, and contribute to local startup ecosystem development through private sector innovation.
“The hope is to increase startups’ chances to find new strategic partners, investors, or enterprise client in NEC, and also to help reveal potential exit paths in case of perfect strategic fit. All these outcomes could also be of great value to VCs if the selected startup turns out to be a portfolio company,” said Kohei Muto, CEO of Double Feather Partners, the Japan-based Africa-focused VC and consulting firm leading the project on behalf of JICA.
Interested startups can apply here until July 28.
