Kepple Africa Ventures

Takahiro Kanzaki and Ryosuke Yamawaki co-founded the firm and lead investment decisions from Tokyo, with a team deployed across Nairobi and Lagos. General Partners evaluate deals collectively, and both founders sit on the boards of multiple portfolio companies across fintech and logistics.

Kepple maintains full-time investment professionals resident in Nairobi and Lagos, who build relationships with local accelerators, angel networks, and repeat founders. The firm's Japanese corporate LP relationships also generate demand-driven sourcing — corporate partners identify market gaps they want filled, and Kepple scouts founders building for those use cases.

Kepple Africa Ventures operates as a venture capital firm, not a family office. It manages third-party capital from Japanese institutional and corporate limited partners. The firm is part of the Kepple Inc. group, a publicly traded Japanese holding company that runs multiple venture strategies across Asia and Africa.

Nigeria, Kenya, and Egypt form the core of Kepple's geographic exposure, with active positions also in Ghana, South Africa, and Côte d'Ivoire. The firm concentrates on markets with large addressable populations, growing digital infrastructure, and startup ecosystems mature enough to produce repeat founders — criteria that overlap heavily with the largest English- and French-speaking economies on the continent.

Japanese trading houses, banks, and technology corporations anchor Kepple's LP base. These investors often view Kepple as a market-intelligence and deal-sourcing channel into Africa, providing a dual function: financial returns from venture investments and strategic options for Japanese firms evaluating African market entry or partnerships with portfolio companies.

Kepple typically leads or co-leads seed and early-stage rounds with initial cheque sizes ranging from $100,000 to $750,000. The firm holds capacity to follow on through subsequent rounds, and it often syndicates with other Pan-African venture firms including Launch Africa Ventures and Ventures Platform.

Kepple's structure creates two exit corridors: M&A by Japanese corporates seeking African market entry, and secondary sales to larger Pan-African or global venture and growth equity funds at later stages. The firm's position inside the Kepple Inc. group also opens pathways for portfolio companies to access Asian public markets when scale and governance benchmarks are met.