Startups & Ideas

MyMovies.Africa launches seed round for $0.5 Million after Ninja Accelerator Program

MyMovies.Africa is looking to raise $0.5 Million to scale the company, and its service. The Kenyan-made Digital cinema extension offers film from across Africa and the diaspora. In October of 2021, it was one of the five ventures selected to be part of the Japan’s NINJA initiative (Next INnovation with JApan).

The startups has over the last 12 weeks participated in the intensive program to prepare it for investment.

“It’s been an exciting 3 months of Transformation for MyMovies.Africa™!”, says Ms. Trushna Buddhdev-Patel, Chief Executive Officer & 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.” 

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 & Answer to Investors from Japan, Kenya and the World, via Zoom. 

“Demo Day, like the NINJA Programme itself, was an adrenalin-pumping Sprint!”, says Mike Strano, Co-Founder.  “But we’re happy with our Pitch, which has now officially Opened our 1st Round of Funding for USD 500,000 to Scale the Company and its Service.” 

”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. 

”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”, said Kohei Muto, Chief Executive Officer of Tokyo-based international VC Double Feather Partners, leading the consortium in charge of the NINJA Accelerator in Kenya. 

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