AFRICA – TLcom Capital, the Africa-focused venture capital firm, has announced the final close of its TIDE Africa Fund II at US$154 million to expand its early-stage, multi-sector focus mandate beyond sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa starting with Egypt.
At more than twice the size of TLcom Capital’s first fund, TIDE Africa Fund II is oversubscribed and sees participation from several new LPs alongside returning LPs from the firm’s first Africa-focused fund, TIDE Africa Fund I, which closed in 2020.
These include the European Investment Bank; Allianz and DEG Impact’s joint venture, AfricaGrow; Visa Foundation; and Bertelsmann.
Founded in 1999 and with offices in Lagos, Nairobi and London, TLcom Capital has US$350 million of assets under management across Africa and Europe.
The firm is Africa’s largest seed and Series A investor, and it has now confirmed with this was the close of the oversubscribed TIDE Africa Fund II.
TIDE Africa Fund II will make initial investments of US$1 million to US$3 million, maintaining significant follow-on capacity to support strong portfolio performers into their growth stages, where the fund continues to see significant upside potential.
The fund has already made its first investments in South Africa and Egypt with LittleFish, a software company enabling payments and banking products for retail-focused SMBs, headquartered in Cape Town, and ILLA, a middle-mile logistics platform headquartered in Cairo.
“TLcom now counts among a small number of venture capital firms that have raised multiple substantial funds for technology in Africa,” Maurizio Caio, founder and managing partner at TLcom Capital said.
“This is a testament to the quality of our team and the trust we’ve established with our limited partners. It’s also a major endorsement of our long-term view on Africa’s massive upside.”
TLcom Capital supports a number of the continent’s fastest-growing start-ups, including uLesson, Autochek, Pula, Fairmoney and Andela, one of the continent’s six unicorn companies.
The firm has attracted Africa’s top repeat founders, including Sim Shagaya, founder of uLesson, Konga and DealDey; Etop Ikpe, founder of Autochek and Cars45; and Grant Brooke, co-founder of Shara and Twiga.
The VC firm has over US$300 million under management, with its portfolio counting 17 start-ups among them Andela, Ajua, Autochek, Fairmoney, Ilara Health, ILLA, Kobo360, LittleFish, Okra, Pula, Seamless HR, Shara, Terragon Group, Twiga, uLesson, Vendease and Zone.
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