Tuesday, June 24, 2008

TBL Mirror Fund & Acumen Fund in Healthcare Deal

Meridian Medical Centre, a Nairobi-based healthcare provider has signed a deal with two of Kenya's youngest Venture Capital firms. The TBL Mirror Fund, a Netherlands backed fund which I played a key role in setting up has co-invested with Acumen Fund, a US-backed fund.

Besides the funds going into the deal, both Acumen and TBL will be putting in mamgement skills, enhancing IT sytems and optimizing other critical inputs.

With TBL's appetite for equity and Acumen's creativity in designing interesting mezzanine instruments this is probably a deal made on heaven for the healthcare provider.

It will be interesting to see what exit avenue is taken in another 4-5
years.

Sent from my iPhone

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bryan
This is great news. I look forward to learning more about these funds and what they are capable of doing.

Just how many Ventures are there in Kenya?

Brian Longwe said...

At the moment there are about 5 or 6 very active "venture capital" funds in Kenya. I use the quotes because most of the deals they are doing are more of private eequity as they are investing into existing, established business which represent a lower risk profile.

Anonymous said...

Bryan
Then obviously there is a great need for a real Venture Capital fund that invests in real untested ideas a la Rte 128 in Boston and Silicon Valley. These funds operating in Kenya, the way you have described it, should be considered Investment Funds rather than Venture Funds.

What do you think?

Jody Ranck said...

This sounds quite interesting and I'm convening a session of the Rockefeller Foundation's Global eHealth Summit on "Unlocking the Market for Global eHealth" and I may have a slot open. If you know someone from Meridian who would be available to attend the summit (Acumen is attending as well). Please have them contact me as soon as possible. This could be a great networking event for them and hold potential to create a major global ehealth partnership. my email is jodyranck at sbcglobal.net

Unknown said...

That sounds good because there are so many organizations that have the need for skills especially creativity. Bryo could you know the other four?