About Us - TVC Labs

About TVCLabs

TVCLabs is an entrepreneur support organization providing strategic and operational support to innovative early-stage African tech-enabled ventures. We believe that African startup founders are building a better future and supporting innovative African startups not only creates economic value but also social impact. We also believe that local Angel investors are a critical resource to founder and startup development and that international support when led locally accelerates the development of our African startup ecosystem. Our vision is to enable technology-led innovation and independence for new ideas on the African continent, especially West Africa.

TVCLabs values intellect, innovation, independence, collaboration and integrity in all our relationships as defined here:

01. Intellect

We make the abstract concrete by researching, reviewing and assessing to provide insights that inspire action. We bring talent together that uses critical thinking to drive change. We partner with our clients to build the capacity required for sustainable competitive advantage.

02. Innovation

We are constantly on the lookout for new ideas, devices and methods that can be applied for better solutions that meet new requirements, unarticulated needs, or existing market needs. Being good is not always good enough as it can always be better.

03. Independence

Whether the required thinking is logical or creative, being independent thinkers enables us to increase performance, productivity, and efficiency. Independent thinking is the tool we use to open doors to opportunity for commercial expression.

04. Collaboration

We are a member of a vibrant, emerging, evolving ecosystem that requires knowledge, expertise and financial exchanges so our successful participation as those of others requires an ability to collaborate effectively and efficiently to the benefit of all.

05. Integrity

We believe Integrity is not just a core value, but that it is the fabric of every core value. It is the foundation on which we build relationships and trust, and it is a non-negotiable value we seek to always demonstrate and find in all people we engage with.

As an active member of the Lagos tech entrepreneurship ecosystem and African early-stage investment market, TVCLabs’ purpose is to find, get funded and then follow innovative African founders as they build the future using technology to improve the quality of human life.

Our mission is to become the most trusted investment resource for Nigerian tech startup founders by delivering entrepreneur support programmes that enable our startup founders to profitably exploit the growing rates of internet penetration and technology (especially mobile) adoption on the continent to create social impact.

TVCLabs has a membership based group of self accredited angel investors with corporate, professional services, entrepreneurial and industrial backgrounds and expertise providing mentoring, advice, connections, networking opportunities, funding and access to other investors in Nigeria, across Africa, Europe and the USA to our startups.

As an innovation Hub, TVCLabs invests in startups building innovative products and services that create value in African markets (especially Nigeria) by addressing socially impactful customer needs that can be profitable at scale.

TVCLabs was founded by Tomi Davies (TD) whose background is in FTSE 100 corporate innovation and technology and has over 20 years’ experience working with early stage technology startups including SupaStrikas, Sproxil, Big Cabal Media, FlexiSAF, Powerstove, Semicolon, OmniBiz and Kasookoo.

The POEM Framework® which underpins most of the work done at TVCLabs is a simple tool for understanding technology-enabled start-up ventures that’s centred on the founder or founders having a vision for the venture that manifests as a Proposition which is a product/service offer made to target customers in a specified market that is delivered by an Organisation which is an ecosystem of people using proprietary processes supported by technology whose success is measured by the Economics of the capital disbursed as expenditure to generate revenue and create impact at each Milestone which is a set of timed achievements, challenges and targets) along the journey from startup idea to launch, through growth and scale or as we are prone to say “from Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to Series A …and beyond”. The framework provides a language for dialogue between the founders, investors and supporters including innovation Hubs and other professional service providers.

Mentor led Funding for a Technology-enabled Africa

We use a mentor-driven capital approach to identify suitable African founders that are creating innovative technology-led startups with high impact to invest in as an angel syndicate. We are growing our portfolio by finding the most innovative startups and connecting them to our angels who provide strategic and operational support through mentoring that’s helping them grow to become employers of choice.

At TVCLabs we run a mentoring program based on the POEM Framework that’s designed for getting (pre/at revenue) MVP stage startups to onboard their first set of customers and maybe even get cash investment by our angels. We take founders from when they have a minimum viable product with funding from family friends and fans having funded them and help put operational structure around their through our intensive mentoring program.

Our angels provide guidance in a wide range of strategic areas that help prepare the startup business for investment by our syndicate. Once at the stage of investment readiness, we have a syndicate of angels that invest in technology enabled startups who would have been involved in the mentoring that provide the startups first external investment,

So at TVCLabs we go all the way from taking a founder from ideation to first customer, then first investment and continue to work with them monthly until they get to Series A funding by VCs.