MyMovies.Africa, a Kenyan-made digital cinema extension, was in October last year selected as 1 of 5 Ventures for the second Next Innovation with Japan (NINJA) program. The program is an initiative by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). On Friday 28th January, 2022, each of the five Ventures in Cohort 2 of NINJA Kenya completed a 5-minute pitch and 4-minute question and answer to investors from Japan, Kenya and the World, via Zoom.
JICA partnered with Double Feather partners, Deloitte Tohmatsu and GrowthAfrica to deliver the Investment-readiness programme. Over the last 12 weeks, MyMovies.Africa has participated in an intensive Programme to prepare it for investment.
“It’s been an exciting 3 months of Transformation for MyMovies.Africa,” said Ms. Trushna Buddhdev-Patel, CEO and co-founder. “NINJA has given us more Clarity as an Entertainment Technology company, which has seen us change our Company Name to YAKWETU and accelerate our plans to launch our 2nd Service this Year. We are very grateful to the NINJA Programme and appreciate all the partners, teachers, coaches and mentors.”
”As our second cohort in Kenya comes to a close, we will continue to actively pursue Project NINJA’s objective to support entrepreneurs for socio-economic development in Africa by connecting our startups and ecosystem players from various parts of the African continent and the world. We believe that peer-to-peer learning can further amplify the positive effects of our growing number of programmes”, said Shingo Morihata, Senior Director – Private Sector Development Group, Economic Development Department at JICA.
On his part, Kohei Muto, CEO of Tokyo-based international VC Double Feather Partners said, “We are so proud of our 2nd Cohort and how they effectively represented African opportunity on this Demo Day. We want investors and corporates to engage more deeply with startups of all stages in Africa; and we will continue to find ways to carry their stories across borders with programmes such as the Silicon Valley Olympiad.”