Gastrophe aims to invest in start-ups that deal in agriculture and food processing sector and other related projects. The accelerator will also work with start-ups in India and abroad.
Mistletoe founder and CEO Taizo Son said, “With the bridge between India and Japan, new and unique solutions to the fundamental questions of food and agriculture will arise. We hope, while working with our great partners, we will become a catalyst for this new movement of farm to fork permaculture.”
India’s tech accelerator GSF founder and CEO Rajesh Sawhney said, “We are in talks with various government entities, including the government of Andhra Pradesh, and are hopeful of creating meaningful partnership to strengthen Indias farm economy in a few months from now.”
According to Indo-Japan business consultancy Infobridge CEO Naho Shigeta, “The focus will be to completely reverse the western worlds pursuit of food standardisation and instead create locally relevant and sustainable businesses that truly benefit the two most important stakeholders, farmers and consumers.”
Taizo Son is known for building Yahoo Japan and also founding a multi-billion dollar online gaming company called GungHo in 2002.
The new project is a new beginning for Taizo Son’s involvement with India, a country where SoftBank has invested more than $6 billion in companies including Flipkart, Ola and Paytm.