TLcom Capital has closed its Tide Africa Fund at $71 million and has also disclosed plans to invest in about 5-6 investments in African startups over the next 18 months.
The fund’s latest $71 million raise included support from Bio, CDC, Sango Capital and IFC.
TLcom Capital will focus primarily on tech-enabled and scalable startups from seed-stage to Series B in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa.
However, Maurizio Caio, TLcom Managing Partner says that the Tide Africa fund would is also looking to invest in evolving markets like Ethiopia.
Caio added: “We’re excited to bring on board new strategic institutional investors, such as CDC, IFC, Sango Capital and BIO.
“Attracting international investment from renowned backers into the African VC space reflects the recognition of the work the TLcom has achieved in connecting the continent’s strongest entrepreneurs with the capital needed to scale.”
“The investment in TLcom provides a critical foundation in our endeavour to plug the funding gap for early-stage companies. And bolster entrepreneurship across Africa,” said, Nick O’Donohoe, CEO of CDC.
He added that CDC is excited to work with TLcom, leveraging technology and innovation to intervene in critical sectors such as education or agriculture and helping to address important consumer and business challenges.
Some of the startups in TLcom’s current Africa portfolio include Kobo360, Twiga Foods, Andela, Terragon Group, Ajua and Ulesson among others.
For those startups who wish to pitch to TLcom Capital, Caio encouraged founders to contact one of the fund’s partners and share a value proposition. “If it’s something we find vaguely interesting, we’ll make a decision,” he said.
Launched in 1999, the Venture Capital firm currently has in excess of USD$200M under management across primary and secondary funds.
