TLcom Capital, an Africa-focused venture capital firm has officially launched the 2021 Africa Tech Female Founder Summit to be held virtually on Wednesday 13th October, 2021. The keynote session will be headlined by Julia Gillard, former Prime Minister of Australia and Chair of Andela.
With the event now in its third edition, TLcom has opened applications for female tech founders across Africa and the Diaspora to attend this year’s virtual summit. The Summit will also feature female C-Suite executives from Africa’s leading tech startups including Desiree Craig of uLesson, Mayokun Fadeyibi of Autochek, Kristen Kelly of Terragon and Susan Kiama of Twiga Foods.
Themed “Board and C-Suite Matters – Counsel, Coach and Collaborate”, the third Female Founder Summit will deliver expert insights on how to build and leverage a senior team and board to drive strong execution and growth. The goal of the summit is to build an even larger community of female tech founders in Africa that can be a support for one another as they scale their businesses.
Due to the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic, TLcom’s 2020 Female Founder Summit was held virtually, with over 100 tech female entrepreneurs and executives from across Africa gathering to experience the power of connecting, learning and being a resource to each other. The 2021 virtual conference has been complemented by local networking cocktail events in Nairobi and Lagos.
TLcom’s TIDE Africa Fund boasts of a leadership team which is 50% female and has actively supported female founders not only through its annual summit, but also through its recent investments in female-led startups. This includes Okra and Pula. The fund also recently welcomed the first unicorn into its portfolio after Andela’s Ksh. 22 billion (USD 200 million) Series E round valued the company at $1.5bn.
TLcom currently manages total commitments of approximately Ksh. 22 billion (USD 200 million) and holds 11 African startups in its portfolio. These are Andela, Ajua, Autochek, Ilara Health, Kobo360, Okra, Pula, Shara, Terragon Group, Twiga Foods and uLesson.
Speaking on the event, Omobola Johnson, Senior Partner at TLcom Capital said, “Over the last 18 months, African tech has broken into a completely new threshold of investment activity and as the ecosystem continues to mature, founders are being exposed to an entirely new set of challenges. From our conversations with entrepreneurs in our network, the most pressing of these issues lie in building a core team both above and below a founder and ensuring they all work in the interests of the organization.”