TLcom Capital is one of the few firms that was backing African tech before it was fashionable. Investing in technology since 1999, it turned its exclusive focus to the continent with its TIDE Africa funds — and in April 2024 announced the final close of TIDE Africa Fund II at $154 million, oversubscribed and more than twice the size of its first fund. It is, by the firm's account, Africa's largest seed and Series A fund.
The fund's investor roster reads like a who's who of development finance and global capital: the European Investment Bank, Allianz and DEG Impact's joint venture AfricaGrow, the Visa Foundation and Bertelsmann, alongside returning LPs from TIDE Africa Fund I (closed in 2020). TLcom now manages over $300 million across its vehicles.
The investment model is deliberately early and patient. TLcom writes initial cheques of $1 million to $3 million — with over 80% of Fund I's investments made at seed or Series A — and keeps significant follow-on capacity to back winners into their growth stages. The new fund extends the mandate beyond sub-Saharan Africa into Egypt, with its first two investments already made: LittleFish, a Cape Town software company enabling payments and banking products for retail-focused SMBs, and ILLA, a Cairo-based middle-mile logistics platform.
The portfolio is one of the most impressive early-stage collections in African tech — 17 startups including Andela, one of the continent's unicorns, alongside uLesson, Autochek, Pula, Fairmoney, Ilara Health, Kobo360, SeamlessHR, Shara, Terragon Group, Twiga, Vendease and Zone. The firm has a habit of attracting Africa's most successful repeat founders — Sim Shagaya (uLesson, Konga), Etop Ikpe (Autochek, Cars45) and Grant Brooke (Shara, Twiga).
The partnership reflects the continent it serves: Founder and Managing Partner Maurizio Caio alongside Omobola Johnson — Nigeria's former minister of Communication Technology — Eloho Omame, Andreata Muforo and Ido Sum. Notably, TLcom has a majority-female partnership and investment committee, and it plans to deploy significant additional capital into female-founded startups — building on a $2 million co-investment commitment to FirstCheck Africa, the female-focused pre-seed fund, made in June 2022.
Sector-wise, TLcom targets tech-enabled companies across data access, financial services, e-commerce, B2C applications (health, education, energy, media and entertainment) and enterprise software for corporates and SMEs.
Who should pitch: Seed and Series A tech founders across Africa — now including Egypt and South Africa — building in fintech, commerce, logistics, edtech, healthtech or enterprise software. If you're a female founder, this is one of the continent's most committed doors to knock on.
Why it matters for founders
TLcom is Africa's deepest early-stage bench: a $154 million fund built for seed and Series A, real follow-on reserves, and a portfolio that includes Andela and uLesson. The Egypt expansion and the explicit push into female-founded companies mean the aperture just widened. Its $1–3 million initial cheques hit the sweet spot for post-product, pre-scale African startups — and its 25-year investing lineage shows it stays through cycles, not just booms.