General News
TLcom Announces 3rd Africa Tech Female Founder Summit
TLcom Capital, the Africa-focussed venture capital firm, has officially announced the launch of the 2021 Africa Tech Female Founder Summit, which will be held virtually on Wednesday 13th October 2021.
The keynote session is headlined by Julia Gillard, former Prime Minister of Australia and Chair of Andela, who will discuss how founders should think about establishing and working with their boards from early stage growth to scale.
With the event now being held for the third successive year, TLcom has opened applications for female tech founders across Africa and the Diaspora to attend this year’s virtual summit, which also features 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. Julia Gillard’s keynote will be followed by an open Q&A session with attendees as well as a panel discussion on how to attract, motivate and retain high-quality senior talent,moderated by Eloho Omame, co-founder of FirstCheck Africa.
Speaking on the event, Omobola Johnson, Senior Partner at TLcom Capital, says, “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 organisation.
If we want our sector to continue on its current trajectory, it’s vital we equip founders to successfully execute these processes both in terms of establishing a more deliberate C-Level hiring strategy and effectively partnering with their boards to amplify the value generation process for their businesses.”
Due to the global pandemic, TLcom’s 2020 Female Founder Summit was also held as a virtual event with over 100 tech female entrepreneurs and executives from across the continent 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.
Andreata Muforo, Partner at TLcom Capital, adds “Whilst the evolution of a board may present a new journey for founders across African tech, we cannot deny that there are fundamental differences in how female entrepreneurs are viewed in these settings.
Women in leadership still have to deal with harmful stereotypes and biases irrespective of their position but a strong and supportive network can make a huge difference in this journey.
This is why the Female Founder Summit is so important as nobody understands our experiences like other women and in Julia, and our incredible panellists, we’re delighted to have people who can not only identify with our attendees, but can also share expert strategies on how to navigate these spaces.”
TLcom’s TIDE Africa Fund, which is one of the most active funds across Sub-Saharan Africa, boasts a leadership team which is 50% female and has actively supported female founders not only through its annual summit, but notably through its recent investments in female-led startups over the last 18 months such as Okra and Pula.
The fund also recently welcomed the first unicorn into its portfolio after Andela’s $200mn Series E round valued the company at $1.5bn.
Currently, TLcom manages total commitments of approximately 200mn USD and holds eleven African startups in its portfolio including Andela, Ajua, Autochek, Ilara Health, Kobo360, Okra, Pula, 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.
Dangote Petroleum Refinery is reportedly nearing completion of a $2.5 billion private placement that values the company at about $40 billion ahead of its planned public listing.
Private placement is the direct sale of company shares or bonds to pre-selected investors instead of the general public and it is used to raise money quickly while avoiding strict public reporting rules.
People familiar with the transaction said investors acquired as much as 6 per cent of the refinery, according to a BusinessDay report.
The reported terms would value the business at approximately $40 billion.
Neither Dangote Group nor the refinery has publicly announced the final amount raised, the identities of most subscribers or the precise percentage sold.
The figures should therefore be treated as transaction details supplied by unnamed sources rather than confirmed company disclosures.
The reported $2.5 billion total is nevertheless significant as it indicates strong demand for exposure to a privately controlled refinery that has rapidly become central to Nigeria’s fuel supply and an increasingly important exporter of petroleum products.
The placement was said to have attracted more demand than the available shares, allowing the company to secure substantially more than the amount initially associated with the fundraising exercise.
Femi Otedola, chairman, First HoldCo, is the only major participant publicly identified in the report.
He reportedly committed $100 million to the transaction and sold his investment in Geregu Power Plc to finance the acquisition.
Nigeria’s pension industry was also reportedly cleared to participate.
Access to more than $17 billion in retirement assets would broaden the refinery’s potential investor base beyond wealthy individuals and conventional institutional buyers.
Participation by Pension Fund Administrators would, however, require careful attention to valuation, liquidity and portfolio-concentration limits.
Retirement funds must balance the attraction of a large Nigerian industrial asset against their responsibility to protect contributors’ savings.
The implied $40 billion valuation represents investor expectations about the refinery’s future earnings rather than only the physical cost of constructing the facility.
Its ability to process 650,000 barrels of crude daily gives it a central role in supplying Nigeria and other markets, but its commercial performance remains connected to crude availability, product prices, exchange rates and regulation.
The refinery has struggled to obtain all the Nigerian crude it requires under the government’s naira-for-crude arrangement.
It has consequently purchased some feedstock internationally and recently moved local petroleum-product pricing into dollars to align sales revenue more closely with its foreign-currency expenses.
Those constraints will be important during any public offering.
Prospective shareholders will want greater clarity on crude-supply contracts, debt, operating margins, export revenue and the company’s relationship with Nigerian regulators.
It is also unclear whether the private placement involved newly issued shares, a sale by existing owners or a combination of both.
That distinction determines whether the reported $2.5 billion becomes fresh capital for the refinery or proceeds received by selling shareholders.
The transaction could provide a useful price reference for the planned initial public offering.
Federal government will next month launch Nigeria’s first national organized crime strategy to strengthen the country’s response to terrorism, cybercrime, human and drug trafficking, kidnapping, illicit financial flows, and other forms of organized crime.
Major General Adamu Laka, national coordinator of the National Counter Terrorism Centre under the Office of the National Security Adviser, disclosed this in Abuja during the validation of the strategy document.
He said the strategy provides a coordinated national framework for tackling organized crime through improved intelligence sharing, stronger collaboration among security agencies, and closer cooperation with the criminal justice system, civil society organizations, and international partners.
Major General Laka explained that the document was developed through a partnership involving the Federal Government, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the United States Government, and other stakeholders.
Speaking at the event, Cheikh Toure, UNODC representative, said the strategy would strengthen Nigeria’s capacity to combat transnational crimes, including drug trafficking, cybercrime, human trafficking, kidnapping, and illicit financial flows.
Also speaking, Douglas Grane, acting director of the United States Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, reaffirmed the U.S. government’s support for Nigeria’s efforts to tackle organized crime through stronger inter-agency and international cooperation.
Representatives of the National Institute for Strategic Studies, the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit, and the National Cyber Security Centre also endorsed the initiative, describing it as a major step towards improving Nigeria’s fight against organized crime.
FATE Foundation, with funding from the Citi Foundation, has launched the Youth Entrepreneurship Incubation Programme to equip young people in Nigeria with financial literacy and entrepreneurship skills.
Delivered through free, safe, and accessible platforms, the programme supports the incubation and scaling of youth-led enterprises, enabling income generation and job creation.
In October 2025, FATE Foundation was selected as a recipient of Citi Foundation’s 2025 Global Innovation Challenge to Accelerate Youth Employability. Joining the cohort of 50 organisations globally, the Foundation will receive $500,000 over two years to advance its youth employability initiative.
“We are excited to be selected for Citi Foundation’s 2025 Global Innovation Challenge,” said Ayomide Akindolie-Igwe, Executive Director of FATE Foundation.
“This support enables us to equip young entrepreneurs in Nigeria with the financial literacy and skills needed to build and scale sustainable businesses.”
The programme addresses youth employability by tackling Africa’s growing jobs crisis. By 2030, the African continent will be home to 40% of the world’s youth, and with one in three under 35 already unemployed, this initiative will support Nigerian youth with a two-phase approach. It begins with financial literacy training before progressing to entrepreneurship development, incubation support, and access to tools needed to build viable, job-creating businesses.
“Through this innovative initiative, FATE Foundation is supporting low-income Nigerian youth to develop essential financial and entrepreneurial skills using accessible platforms.
“This support is not just helping individuals to succeed; it is building a solid foundation for sustainable enterprises that will drive job creation and contribute significantly to our nation’s economic vitality. This initiative is empowering and investing in the future of Nigeria, one youth at a time,” said Nneka Enwereji, MD/CEO Citibank Nigeria Limited.
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