TLcom Capital raises $40m for TIDE Africa Fund to support entrepreneurs

London-based VC TLcom Capital has announced it has committed $40-million to the Technology and Innovation for Developing Economics (TIDE) Africa Fund.

The VC fund’s announcement, made last Thursday, of the injection of funds will help TIDE focus exclusively on entrepreneurs and startups from Sub-Saharan Africa.

The $40-million was raised with the help of the African Development Bank and the European Investment Bank, which both committed $10-million each. Among other investors involved in raising the capital was Silicon Valley based Bob King, the founder of the Stanford SEED Institute.

The fund will provide both capital and business support to startups leveraging mobile in markets such as financial services, commerce energy, health and education.

“In recent years the TLcom team has invested heavily in the Africa VC opportunity,” said the Nairobi-based founder and managing partner of TLcom Maurizio Caio in a press release to Ventureburn.

TIDE Africa Fund aims to support top entrepreneurs from Sub-Saharan Africa

“We have opened offices in Nairobi and Lagos, looked at hundreds of tech entrepreneurs in Africa, and successfully invested and exited the best among the first generation of African mobile startups, such as Upstream and Movirtu,” said Caio.

The TIDE Africa Fund will make equity investments in early-stage startups of between $500 000 to $10-million. Due diligence will form a strong focus during the first round of investments.

“TLcom believes that African scalable tech enterprises represent not only a massive value generation opportunity but also a unique development tool that can result in job creation and much wider inclusion,” said Andreata Muforo, a partner at TLcom.

Omobola Johnson, a senior partner at TLcom and former Nigerian minister of communication technology, also expressed his eagerness to finalise the first deals.

“TIDE Africa offers a great opportunity to our investor partners and to global private capital to achieve significant returns and support world class technology entrepreneurs who are working in Africa to create solutions for local and global markets,” said Johnson.

Featured image:( from left to right) Ido Sum, investment director; Omobala Johnson, partner; Andreata Muforo, investment director; Maurizio Caio, founder and managing partner (Supplied).