Much of the conversation about African venture capital in the last three years has been about what it lacks. Funding is down from its 2021-2022 peak. Exits are scarce. Small cheques that grow companies have thinned out, and startups with strong teams and revenue have shut down.
But Eloho Omame, a partner at TLcom Capital, an Africa-focused venture capital (VC) firm managing over $250 million, has been making a different argument.
In a recent essay, she wrote that African venture is compounding, arguing that the building blocks needed to build and scale companies on the continent are more solidly in place today than they were a decade ago and that this changes what investors can reasonably underwrite.
Her claim is not that the market is easy but that the market now has a decade of accumulated evidence about what works and that this evidence is itself an asset.
Originally published by TechCabal.