TLCOM

If you shut something down this year, this one is for you. An audience member at Silicon Xchange asked a panel of investors about failure. Philippe Griffiths of TLCOM answered with a question. How are you defining failure? Then he said the part that does not usually get said on a stage. Many of the companies his fund backs become write-offs, and that is after building a case for each one returning the fund on its own. Most founders will not reach the ambition they started with. We are in a space of failure. That is a description of the sector, not a verdict on anyone working in it. He drew one line, and it was around behaviour rather than outcomes. Egregious ethical issues, yes. Taking a big bet on high conviction and putting real money behind it, no. What he does not count as failure is the person who comes back. He said he loves second-time founders, and third-time founders, and he said it as a preference rather than a consolation. The experience is the asset. It only stays in the ecosystem if the person does. So if the last one did not work, the thing that would make it a failure is not starting the next one. Send this to someone who needs to hear it from an investor rather than from a friend. #SiliconXchange #AfricanFounders #Founders #VentureCapital #StartupAfrica #BuildInAfrica

Most African companies will never be venture backed. Andreata Muforo has been investing in African tech since 2013, when the whole continent raised less than $200 million a year. She's a partner at TLCOM, $225M under management, with Andela in the portfolio. The math founders rarely see: → 15 to 20% of a portfolio survives. Out of 20 companies, four or five make it → One or two of those have to return over $100M on their own → That means crossing $500M to $1B in valuation Everything else, however good, doesn't move her fund. A profitable company that tops out at a $20M valuation is a win for its founder and a miss for a VC. Her deeper point: capital was never the only constraint. Capital cannot compress time. Infrastructure, trust, regulators all take years to build. We also covered: → The investor who told her M-Pesa had done everything in tech → Why she does an anti-portfolio review, and which kind of miss actually worries her → The three different ways a startup fails, and what to do in each → Why getting a strategic on your cap table helps your exit, and the clause that kills it Link to the full episode in the comments 👇🏾

African VCs invest in 1-2% of the companies they see. Andreata Muforo has been investing in African tech since 2013, when the whole continent raised under $200M a year. She’s a partner at TLCOM($225M AUM) and has backed Andela, SeamlessHR and HoneyCoin. TLcom invests in 1 to 2% of the companies it sees. Of the ones that get a check, only 15 to 20% survive. Here are my top 5 learnings from my conversation with Andreata Muforo, Partner at TLcom Capital.