Investment company TLcom has reached the halfway mark in deploying $5 million from its TAPSI fund, with a major wager placed on TurnStay.
In the dynamic world of African startups, TLcom Capital's pre-seed fund, TAPSI, is making a significant impact. With a focus on early-stage investments, TAPSI offers up to $200K in capital, along with access to TLcom's extensive network and venture experience.
This year, 2025, has been a challenging one for African startups, with several high-profile closures, including Edukoya, Bento Africa, Lipa Later, and Kobo360. Despite these setbacks, the venture market is showing strong momentum, having raised over $2 billion by August. Fintech dominates the scene, capturing about 45% of total funding, followed by the energy, healthcare, and housing sectors.
TAPSI, as a pre-seed fund operated by TLcom Capital, fits into this landscape. In a market where access to early equity funding is becoming scarcer, especially in countries like Nigeria, TAPSI's focus on pre-seed investments helps address the startup ecosystem's gap for early-stage equity financing.
Key challenges that TAPSI and similar early-stage funds likely face include reduced availability of early-stage equity capital, balancing the need for local capital involvement with the importance of foreign investment, ensuring startups can scale sustainably amid increasing debt financing, and sector concentration risks.
However, TLcom is undeterred. The venture capital firm aims to fix Africa's "Series B gap" by managing funding from pre-seed to Series B. With TAPSI, TLcom is betting on planting many seeds, nurturing the strongest, and accepting losses.
Moreover, TAPSI serves as a feeder for TLcom's $154M TIDE Africa Fund II, allowing strong performers to graduate from pre-seed to million-dollar raises without giving up equity to outside investors. Notable startups in TLcom's current portfolio include Nigerian edtech Talstack, Egypt's B2B marketplace Tradehub, Sudan/Ethiopia's Bright Financial, Kenya's agtech Agrails, and three female-founded startups.
Looking ahead, TLcom plans up to 10 more pre-seed deals, with $2.5M still to deploy, by the end of 2026. As the next 18 months test whether betting earlier means building better or losing faster, TAPSI remains a strategic player in the evolving African startup funding landscape.
[1] African Startup Funding Report 2025 (Source: Disrupt Africa) [2] African Tech Startups: Sector Trends and Investment Landscape 2025 (Source: TechCabal) [3] African Venture Capital Market Trends 2025 H1 (Source: Partech Africa) [4] African Fintech Investment Landscape 2025 (Source: Fintech in Africa) [5] Local Investors Outpace Foreign Ones in African Startup Participation 2025 Q1 (Source: Ventures Platform)
- In the African startup scene, TAPSI, a pre-seed fund by TLcom Capital, is making a significant impact, especially in countries like Nigeria, by offering early-stage equity financing to technology-driven businesses, which could potentially lift the finance and investing sector.
- As TLcom Capital aims to fill the "Series B gap" by managing funding from pre-seed to Series B, investing in up to 10 more pre-seed deals by the end of 2026, they are positioning TAPSI as a key player in the future of technology-driven businesses and investing in Africa.
