Lagos, Nigeria – Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures (“VKAV”) is pleased to announce that it has raised an additional investment as part of its ongoing fundraising for its pan-African venture fund from Yoren (New Designed by Tokyo), a Japanese consumer analytics company, who manages multiple consumer loyalty programs with over 50 million active members in the Chinese market, and has entered into a strategic partnership to support Yoren’s activities in Africa to invest in African tech startups as well as developing data-related products tailored made for the market.
Yoren has already made two investments with support from VKAV in Autochek, the end-to-end automobile platform operating across 9 African countries, and Chari, the leading B2B E Commerce and fintech platform in Morocco.
Leveraging VKAV’s extensive networks and resources in Africa and Yoren’s strong track record of consumer analytics and marketing, both companies will collaborate to develop data-driven marketing and branding solutions for consumer facing businesses to enter Africa.
Osamu kaneda, CEO and Representative Director at Yoren, commented, “Yoren’s vision is “Connect different cultures and create a world where people truly understand each other.” As a company that has operated exclusively in China since its inception in 2011, we have strived to achieve this vision by contributing to the commercial success of Japanese brands and retail companies in China. Africa will be the last frontier of the world’s population expansion and we believe that our vision will help stimulate the industrialization of the African economy by leveraging VKAV’s extensive networks across the African innovation scenes and Yoren’s expertise and experiences in building solutions in China.”
Ryosuke Yamawaki, Partner at Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures (VKAV), also expressed their pleasure in welcoming Yoren, an institution with a solid track record of leveraging data to enable major global brands for successful entry to the Chinese consumer market, stating, “Africa has a population of about 1.4 billion today, which is almost equivalent to that of China and India. It is predicted that its population will get to around 2.4 billion by 20205, but it is not well known that it hasn’t reached the point of benefiting from demographic dividend. When it happens in the coming 10-30 years, the world will see the emergence of an enormous consumer market which could be the size of China and India today combined. It is a blessing to see a company like Yoren entering the market before this “dawn”, and believe that it will help vitalize consumption in Africa and inspire many more companies to follow suit. “
For further information, please visit https://vkav.vc or contact:
Karabo Maelane: Head – Investor Relations & Communications, Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures
Tel: +234 1 462 8646/7
Email: investorrelations@vkav.vc
