Yemi Lalude, Partner & Head of Africa for TPG's Rise Funds - Investing in African technology companies Built Tough

Yemi Lalude’s journey is driven by his two greatest passions: Africa and technology. It is no exaggeration to say that Yemi is an early mover in African tech. In 2008, he founded Adlevo Capital, the first private equity firm investing in African tech companies. Under Yemi's guidance, the firm made early bets on (now) household names, like Interswitch and Paga.
After Adlevo, Yemi joined TPG as Partner & Head of Africa. TPG is one of the world’s largest PE firms with $135BN assets under management. In 2021, TPG’s Rise Fund invested $200M in Airtel’s mobile money unit. To date, it is still one of the largest deals in African tech.
In this episode, Yemi talks about his ‘strange pitch’ that helped him move into VC, why joining VC after the dot-com crash was a blessing in disguise, how he drew parallels from China to start investing in African tech, the back story to his Interswitch investment and common missteps made by African growth businesses.