TLcom Capital, a leading venture capital firm with a strong footprint across Africa, has announced that it has deployed 50% of its $5 million pre-seed fund, marking a significant milestone in its strategy to support the continent’s earliest-stage tech entrepreneurs.
The fund, known as TIDE Africa Pre-Seed Investments (TAPSI), reached this halfway point following its participation in a $2 million seed round for TurnStay, a South African travel payments platform. TAPSI was launched in 2022 to give TLcom earlier access to promising startups, with individual investments capped at $200,000.
More than just a funding vehicle, TAPSI serves as a strategic feeder into TLcom’s larger $154 million TIDE Africa Fund II, creating a pipeline for high-performing startups to receive follow-on capital as they scale. This multi-stage investment model allows TLcom to support companies from ideation through to potential exit, embedding the firm deeply into their growth journeys.
Eloho Omame, Partner at TLcom Capital, emphasized the importance of early engagement with founders:
Building in Africa is not for the faint-hearted. But the likelihood of success increases significantly when we support founders from the very beginning and grow alongside them.
This philosophy underpins TLcom’s approach to TAPSI, which is designed to identify and nurture startups with transformative potential across diverse sectors and regions.
With half of the fund now deployed, TAPSI’s portfolio reflects a broad geographic and sectoral spread, including:
- TurnStay (South Africa) – Travel tech
- Talstack (Nigeria) – Edtech/HR tech
- Bright Financial (Sudan & Ethiopia) – Fintech
- Tradehub (Egypt) – B2B commerce
- Agrails (Kenya) – Agtech
In addition, TLcom has partnered with First Check Africa, a fund focused on female-led startups, to support three additional companies, further reinforcing its commitment to diversity and inclusion in tech.
TLcom’s structured approach to early-stage investing is helping bridge a critical gap in Africa’s startup funding landscape, where pre-seed capital is often scarce and high-risk. By formalizing this entry point, TLcom positions itself as a multi-stage investor, capable of supporting startups through every phase of their development.
A notable success story is Talstack, a Nigerian edtech startup that received initial backing from TAPSI. After validating its business model and gaining early traction, Talstack secured a follow-on seed round from TIDE Fund II in 2024, demonstrating the effectiveness of TLcom’s feeder strategy.
