TLcom Capital Raises $154 million in Funding to Increase Its African Progress

• TLcom Capital has raised $154 million  in its second Fund, TIDE Africa II
• With this second fund, TLcom Capital maintains its early-stage, multi-sector focus and expands its mandate past Sub-Saharan Africa to Egypt.
• TLcom Capital at the moment has over $300 million beneath administration.

TLcom Capital, the Africa-focused enterprise capital agency, introduced the ultimate shut of TIDE Africa Fund II, its second fund for know-how in Africa, at $154 million. Confirming TLcom Capital’s standing as Africa’s largest Seed and Sequence A investor, the brand new fund accelerates the agency’s mission to accomplice with elite founders to deal with Africa’s greatest and most advanced challenges with progressive options that can unlock large worth within the continent’s crucial sectors.

At greater than twice the dimensions of TLcom Capital’s first fund, TIDE Africa Fund II is oversubscribed and sees participation from a number of new, high-profile LPs alongside returning LPs from the agency’s first Africa-focused fund, TIDE Africa Fund I, closed in 2020. These embody the European Funding Financial institution (EIB), Allianz and DEG Influence’s three way partnership, AfricaGrow, Visa Basis and Bertelsmann.

With this second fund, TLcom Capital maintains its early-stage, multi-sector focus and expands its mandate past Sub-Saharan Africa to Egypt. TIDE Africa Fund II will make preliminary investments of $1 million to $3 million, sustaining important follow-on capability to assist robust portfolio performers into their progress levels, the place the fund continues to see large upside potential.

TLcom Capital Raises $154 million

Doubling down on TLcom Capital’s established presence in West and East Africa, the fund has already made its first investments in South Africa and Egypt with LittleFish, a software program firm enabling funds and banking merchandise for retail-focused SMBs, headquartered in Cape City, and ILLA, a middle-mile logistics platform headquartered in Cairo.

 “TLcom now counts amongst a small variety of enterprise capital corporations which have raised a number of substantial funds for know-how in Africa. This can be a testomony to the standard of our group and the belief we’ve established with our restricted companions. (yurtsofamerica.com) It’s additionally a serious endorsement of our long-term view on Africa’s large upside,” mentioned Maurizio Caio, Founder and Managing Accomplice at TLcom Capital.

The agency mentioned it maintains the identical TIDE Africa Fund II funding technique as its first fund, which revamped 80 per cent of its investments at Seed or Sequence A.

Boasting one of the vital spectacular early-stage portfolios in African tech, TLcom Capital helps various the continent’s fastest-growing startups, together with uLesson, Autochek, Pula, Fairmoney and Andela, one of many continent’s six unicorn firms. The agency has a strong observe file of attracting Africa’s most profitable repeat founders, together with Sim Shagaya (founding father of uLesson, Konga and DealDey), Etop Ikpe (founding father of Autochek and Cars45) and Grant Brooke (co-founder of Shara and Twiga).

“We’re additionally excited to spend extra time within the Egyptian ecosystem, co-investing alongside essentially the most energetic native funds. TLcom is properly on its option to realising our ambition of changing into Africa’s most sought-after early-stage VC and a really pan-African agency,” added Caio

Since TLcom Capital introduced TIDE Africa Fund II’s first shut in January 2022, the agency has additionally considerably expanded its group, including funding and operational capability by doubling its headcount to fifteen workers, together with new funding professionals in Nigeria and Kenya.

Ambroise Fayolle, the Vice President and Head of Investments on the European Funding Financial institution, mentioned that entry to capital throughout Africa stays restricted, particularly for early-stage startups.

“On the identical time, a younger, technology-savvy inhabitants gives fertile floor for younger firms. Africa’s startup ecosystem has the potential to drive inclusive financial progress and foster optimistic social change, which the EIB is glad to assist. By means of our funding in TLcom’s TIDE Africa II Fund, we count on to construct and broaden on the success and influence of the primary TIDE Africa Fund, delivering much-needed capital to essentially the most promising high-growth firms.”

Najada Kumbuli, Vice President & Head of Investments at Visa Basis, said that their funding in TIDE Africa Fund II demonstrated their dedication to aiding in creating robust economies the place companies might thrive and produce important monetary and influence returns.

She admired TLcom’s historical past of supporting visionary entrepreneurs in creating high-growth enterprise fashions able to leveraging Africa’s substantial financial potential. Kumbuli emphasised that the agency’s alignment with Visa Basis’s mission bolstered their confidence that, by way of this partnership, their capital would contribute to creating the subsequent era of profitable and numerous entrepreneurs shaping the continent’s future.

With its new fund, TLcom Capital plans to deploy important extra capital into female-founded African tech startups, constructing on its June 2022 co-investment dedication of $2 million to FirstCheck Africa, a female-focused pre-seed fund. TLcom Capital’s dedication to gender stability is mirrored in its majority-female partnership and funding committee.

TLcom Capital at the moment has over $300 million beneath administration. Its portfolio counts 17 startups, together with Andela, Ajua, Autochek, Fairmoney, Ilara Well being, ILLA, Kobo360, LittleFish, Okra,  Pula, Seamless HR, Shara, Terragon Group, Twiga, uLesson, Vendease and Zone.