Investor Updates: TLcom Capital appoints Eloho Omame as partner

TLcom Capital names FirstCheck’s Eloho Omame partner

Highlights

• Africa-focused VC firm TLcom Capital has appointed Eloho Omame as a partner six months after announcing the first close of its $150 million TIDE Africa Fund.
• Eloho is the co-founder and general partner of FirstCheck Africa, an early-stage firm that invests in pre-seed and seed-stage startups with at least one female founder or co-founder. Before FirstCheck Africa, she was the founding managing director of Endeavor Nigeria.
• TLcom Capital typically invests from seed to Series B. The firm, which has offices in Lagos, London, and Nairobi, now intends to focus more on the pre-seed stage and Omame’s appointment is critical to this.

Source: TechCrunch

Our Takeaway

Only a handful of Africa-focused VC firms have more than $100 million to deploy in Africa and they have typically made bets from seed to Series C for years. But firms like TLcom Capital are increasing their appetite for much earlier deals and it realizes that to access or generate deal flow, it needs to catch founders early in their journies. And from a diversity perspective, the firm is also keen on backing more female-led companies at this stage. In addition to appointing Oloho, TLcom also committed $2 million to FirstCheck Africa.

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AfDB sets up an African pharmaceutical technology foundation

Highlights

• The African Development Bank’s (AfDB) Board of Directors has approved the establishment of the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation.
• The new institution is expected to significantly enhance Africa’s access to the technologies that underpin the manufacture of medicines, vaccines, and other pharmaceutical products.
• “Africa must have a health defense system, which must include three major areas: revamping Africa’s pharmaceutical industry, building Africa’s vaccine manufacturing capacity, and building Africa’s quality healthcare infrastructure,” African Development Bank Group President, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina said.

Source: ITNewsAfrica

Our Takeaway

Setting up the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation should serve as a major boost to the health prospects of a continent that has been battered for decades by the burden of several diseases and pandemics such as Covid-19, but with very limited capacity to produce its own medicines and vaccines. Africa imports more than 70% of all the medicines it needs, gulping $14 billion per year.

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Egypt-based Disruptech secures funding from AXIAN Group

Highlights

• Egypt-based Disruptech, a fintech-focused VC fund, has secured funding from Madagascar-based AXIAN Group.
• The Disruptech Egypt Fund I is dedicated to developing Egypt’s fintech ecosystem by supporting startups and is nurturing a growing number of companies in adjacent sectors that are accelerating financial inclusion. 
• The fund supports startups from the seed-round investments through scaling and eventual growth. As such, the AXIAN deal will enable Disruptech to help more fledgling fintech startups to scale and expand beyond their home market.

Source: Wamda

Our Takeaway

In Egypt, only 33% of people have a bank account, according to the most recent World Bank data. Expanding access to financial services is thus a primal objective, and startups leading such efforts stand to gain significantly from increasing amounts of venture capital available in the country, which has grown more than 10-fold since 2016 and has placed Egypt as one of Africa’s leading countries by tech venture funding.