TLcom Capital, the Africa-focussed venture capital firm, has officially announced the launch of its second Africa Tech Female Founder Summit, which will be held virtually on Tuesday 27th October 2020. Building on the success of its inaugural event in 2019, TLcom has launched a call for applications for female tech founders across Africa to attend this year’s virtual Summit, which features speakers from across Africa’s tech scene including Hilda Moraa of Pezesha, Wambui Kinya of Andela and Fara Ashiru Jituboh of Okra.
Themed “Reset – Survive – Thrive”, the second Female Founder Summit will equip female tech founders to achieve commercial success and scale in the long-term despite the impact of the global pandemic. With a number of panel sessions and workshops scheduled, the event will gather female entrepreneurs from across the continent to experience the power of connecting, learning from and being a resource to each other. There will also be an opportunity for attendees to receive business and fundraising advice directly from investors at TLcom, Aruwa Capital and the IFC (International Finance Corporation), during a newly-launched “Ask Me Anything” Q&A session.
Speaking on the event, Omobola Johnson, Senior Partner at TLcom Capital, says, “For the African entrepreneur, resources and support are limited in comparison to other regions but as a sector, we must address the tough reality that this is even worse for female entrepreneurs on the continent. With this in mind, the second Female Founder Summit is a firm commitment from TLcom that we cannot and will not ignore these discrepancies. We want to play our part in levelling the playing field and through the Summit, we continue to establish a network for Africa’s most thoughtful and innovative female founders to access strategic and operational support as they push to achieve massive value generation.”
TLcom’s inaugural Female Founder Summit was held in October 2019 in Lagos as a closed event with 50+ female tech entrepreneurs and executives in attendance. Key speakers at the event included Funke Opeke of Main One, Odunayo Eweniyi of Piggyvest, Miishe Addy of Jetstream and Isis Nyong’o of Mum’s Village and the event is set to return for its second year with an exclusive focus on female founders within African tech.
Andreata Muforo, Partner at TLcom Capital, adds “We know only too well the benefits of a diverse ecosystem, not only due to the fact that half of our senior team is female, but also through the quality of female entrepreneurs we’ve engaged with over the last years. We recently invested in a female-led startup in Okra and we view the second Female Founder Summit as a robust commitment towards strengthening our pipeline of female founders.”
“Founders who attended last year’s Summit have shared how they have been collaborating after the event as mentors, clients, service providers to each other, and even merging of companies between two of the attendees. Our focus this year will be ensuring the next crop of female entrepreneurs emerge to become even more empowered to execute the next phase of their business strategies.”
TLcom’s TIDE Africa Fund, which is one of the most active funds across Sub-Saharan Africa, secured an additional $31mn investment in February 2020, bringing its total to $71mn. In recent months, the VC firm has reiterated its commitment to investing in African tech despite the impact of COVID-19 and is set to announce new investments in the next few months.
Currently, TLcom manages total commitments of approximately 200mn USD and holds eight African startups in its portfolio including Andela, Ajua, Kobo360, Okra, Shara, Terragon Group, Twiga Foods, and uLesson. With an on-the-ground presence in Kenya and Nigeria as well as offices in the UK, the firm invests across all stages of the venture capital cycle and a wide range of industries including agriculture, education, data analytics, and logistics.
Founded in 1999, TLcom has $200mn of VC assets under management across Africa, Europe, and Israel and recently announced the closing of the $71mn TIDE Africa Fund, dedicated to technology and innovation for Sub-Saharan Africa at all stages of venture capital. The TLcom portfolio includes Twiga Foods, Andela, uLesson, and Kobo360 among others, and it has completed successful Africa VC exits with Upstream acquired by Actis and Movirtu acquired by BlackBerry. The TIDE Africa Fund delivers capital as part of a larger strategic, operational and financial support to entrepreneurs.
