While venture capital flows in Africa have cooled, a new, strategic source of funding is quietly emerging from the East. Japanese technology startups and their corporate backers are increasingly targeting the continent’s most critical infrastructure gaps, pouring capital and advanced AI into agriculture and health — sectors where climate change is hitting hardest.

The latest and largest signal of this trend comes from Degas Limited, a global agri-fintech player, which has just committed $100m over four years to establish Ghana as Africa’s first AI-powered agricultural hub. The deal, announced at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD 9), isn’t just about funding; it’s about deploying a high-tech playbook of satellite imagery, precision agronomy, and AI-driven financing to a continent grappling with food security.

This move is part of a broader pattern where Japanese innovators, often armed with sophisticated hardware and deep AI expertise, are filling niches that others have overlooked, positioning themselves as key partners in building a more resilient Africa.

The $100M AI Harvest

At the heart of the new Japanese push is Degas. The company is scaling up a model that has already shown remarkable results in Ghana, financing 86,000 smallholder farmers across 122,000 acres. By leveraging AI-powered satellite monitoring, Degas provides farmers with real-time agronomic advice and financial services, a combination that has doubled farmer incomes while maintaining an impressive 95% loan repayment rate.

“Ghana has shown that when technology meets a clear national vision, smallholder farmers can thrive,” said Doga Makiura, CEO and founder of Degas. “Many Japanese partners now consider Ghana’s integrated approach the gold standard for agricultural investment in Africa.”

Degas’s $100m investment deal will expand:

• AI-supported farmer financing: Scaling credit access for smallholders.
• Satellite-enabled crop monitoring: Using real-time data for smarter farming decisions.
• Precision agronomy services: Improving soil health and optimising yields.
• Supply chain integration: Connecting farmers to markets, logistics, and storage.

The investment is also backed by Japanese industrial might. Sojitz Corporation, a major trading house, has not only invested in Degas but is also collaborating on developing a specialised generative AI model for satellite image analysis. This “geospatial foundation model” will be powered by GPU cloud services from Japan’s Sakura internet, demonstrating a deep, multi-layered technology partnership aimed at forecasting weather, natural disasters, and crop yields.

Drones, Disease, and a Japanese Footprint

Degas is not an isolated case. The trend of Japanese-led, Africa-focused climate and health tech is gaining momentum.

In May, Tokyo-based SORA Technology secured $4.8m in a late seed round to expand its drone and AI-powered health infrastructure across Africa. Currently operating in six African countries, including Ghana and Kenya, SORA uses drones for malaria vector control — spraying targeted areas to reduce mosquito populations — and employs AI-driven forecasting to predict disease outbreaks linked to climate patterns.

The funding, backed by Japanese VCs like Nissay Capital and SMBC Venture Capital, will help SORA scale its operations to 15 African countries. The company’s model sits at the intersection of climate adaptation and public health, building resilient infrastructure in regions vulnerable to both infectious diseases and environmental shocks.

This model of deploying advanced hardware to solve logistical and health challenges has already been proven at scale on the continent. While American-owned, Zipline has become a fixture in Africa’s health supply chain, using its drones for over a million commercial deliveries in countries like Ghana, Rwanda, and Nigeria. Its success has been supported by Japanese partners, including a key distribution partnership with Toyota Tsusho, further cementing the role of Japanese logistics and capital in Africa’s tech-driven infrastructure development.

The Bottom Line

While the US and European VCs who dominated Africa’s funding headlines in 2021 and 2022 are becoming more selective, Japanese investors and startups are pursuing a different strategy. Instead of chasing the next fintech unicorn, they are focusing on deep-tech solutions for fundamental sectors like agriculture and health.

This approach is less about hype cycles and more about long-term infrastructure building. By combining advanced AI, robotics (drones), and corporate backing from industrial giants like Sojitz and Toyota Tsusho, Japanese firms are creating integrated systems designed to solve complex, on-the-ground problems.

Initiatives like TICAD provide the diplomatic and economic framework, but the real work is being done by companies like Degas and SORA, who are proving that sophisticated technology can be deployed effectively and profitably to address Africa’s climate-related challenges. For a continent in need of resilient food and health systems, Japan’s quiet tech infusion could offer a powerful blueprint for the future.