TLcom Secures First Close Of $150 million Africa Focused Tech Fund

With a first close in line with the total size of its TIDE Africa Fund in 2020, TLcom’s second fund sees participation from Allianz, its joint venture with German Investment Corporation, as well as a host of new and returning investors including Bertelsmann, King Philanthropies, the TLcom team and FBNQuest from the private sector, CDC Group, IFC, Proparco and Swedfund. A second close of the fund is expected later in 2022.

With its new fund, TLcom will expand its existing focus on fast-growth, tech-enabled African startups to Egypt, as well as strengthen its long-standing presence across East and West Africa. With ticket sizes ranging from $500,000 to $15 million, TLcom expects to add an additional 20 early-stage startups to its portfolio with an emphasis on seed and series A stages and will target entrepreneurs tackling some of the continent’s most complex challenges in sectors including fintech, mobility, agriculture, healthcare, education and ecommerce.

Speaking on the launch of the new fund, Nairobi-based founder and managing partner at TLcom, Maurizio Caio said since the closing of the company’s previous fund, African tech has secured more high-value financing rounds than ever before.  “This is only just the beginning. It is becoming increasingly evident that our sector has broken into a new era of maturity driven by very strong business fundamentals that African founders are demonstrating not only in the fintech space, but across a huge number of the continent’s largely underserved markets,” Caio added.

As TLcom partners with some of the world’s leading global investors for its new fund, Caio disclosed that this is not only an endorsement of the massive value generation upside on the continent, but also of TLcom proven track record in identifying and supporting entrepreneurs successfully winning and redefining Africa’s key verticals.

In order to contribute to unlocking the next phase of Africa’s huge economic upside, the managing partner at TLcom revealed that the company will be mobilizing its new fund to strengthen partnership with African founders, with a special emphasis on female entrepreneurs, as well as its role as the leading local partner of choice for global VCs increasingly looking at Africa.

Director and head of Technology and Telecom at CDC,  Abhinav Sinha, said, “We are excited to expand our partnership with TLcom. The fund’s focus on business fundamentals coupled with deep understanding of local context has been instrumental in identifying market shaping businesses and innovative entrepreneurs in Africa. We are confident that our continued relationship will further amplify TLcom’s ambitions to accelerate impact to consumers and businesses across Africa’s diverse markets.”

Lead portfolio manager impact investments, AfricaGrow/Allianz, Martin Ewald, said, “One thing is clear to those who are close to the African VC market: it will grow. We at Africa Grow believe much more is possible in terms of capital influx into the continent especially in the VC space. There is considerable upside for everyone if investment activities accelerate even more. African businesses can boost productivity, gain in terms of competitiveness and technological edge and tens of millions more Africans could gain stable employment while generating returns for investors.”

Managing director at FBNQuest Funds, Ijeoma Agboti, added that, “FBNQuest’s decision to back TLcom on its second fund was based on the fund manager’s demonstrated track record of investing in high growth tech companies with strong business fundamentals and implementing value creation strategies that improve the operations and profitability of these companies. We remain confident that TLcom is well-positioned to continue to deliver on our shared objective to provide capital, the required operational support and access to international partnerships to technology companies in the Africa region through the TIDE Africa Fund II.”