NEC Launches Africa Corporate Innovation Program to Connect Japanese Technology with African Startups

Japanese technology giant NEC has taken a formal step into Africa’s startup ecosystem, launching a structured program designed to bridge the gap between Japanese corporate innovation capacity and the field-driven problem-solving emerging from African founders.

NEC Corporation has launched the Africa Corporate Innovation Program, an initiative to strengthen collaboration with African startups tackling social challenges including agriculture and food security. The program is being implemented in partnership with Shell Foundation and Double Feather Partners, which brings local co-creation design and business scaling expertise across African markets. Shell Foundation is a UK-registered charity funded by the UK Government’s Research on Infrastructure in Developing Economies program. 

The program leverages NEC’s ICT platform CropScope to develop agricultural technologies including farm-to-market logistics solutions, while conducting proof-of-concept trials with African startups to build evidence for longer-term commercial partnerships and expansion across the continent. Selected startups will collaborate directly with NEC and its partners throughout the PoC process, with outcomes evaluated in March 2027 to determine pathways to investment and business scale-up. 

Double Feather Partners will design and support mechanisms connecting PoC initiatives to investment opportunities, maximising both NEC’s business expansion in Africa and its social impact creation. In collaboration with Shell Foundation, DFP will also support the development of sustainable business models from the perspectives of impact investment and blended finance. Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is also a supporting partner, continuing its track record of cooperation aimed at strengthening startup ecosystems in Africa and enhancing collaboration between African and Japanese companies. 

NEC presented the initiative at the SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026 innovation conference, where a session titled “Beyond Capital: Building Japan-Africa Innovation Through Co-Creation and Investment” brought together NEC, JICA, Shell Foundation, Double Feather Partners, the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa, and Absa Bank to outline the program’s ambitions and architecture.