How $120m TEF Funding Created 1.5m Jobs Across Africa

Princess Adeyinka Tekenah saw an opportunity in a market where about 90 per cent of the coffee consumed in Nigeria was imported.

With a $5,000 seed grant from the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) in 2015, she launched Happy Coffee, a business that has since served more than 30,000 cups of coffee, generated over ₦90 million in cumulative revenue and created direct and indirect jobs for more than 1,000 people.

For Olamide Ayeni-Babajide, the opportunity was in Lagos’ growing waste problem. She founded Pearl Recycling to turn urban waste into sustainable furniture and other environmentally friendly products after receiving a $5,000 TEF grant in 2016.

The business later received a $10,000 growth grant through the Women Entrepreneurship for Africa programme. Its annual revenue grew from $5,000 to more than $120,000, while it has diverted 255 tonnes of waste from landfills, donated 818 study chairs made from recycled tyres to schools and trained more than 15,000 people, mainly women and girls, in vocational and digital skills.

Their stories are among the outcomes highlighted in the Tony Elumelu Foundation’s 15 Years of Impact Report, covering 2010 to 2025, as the foundation marks its expansion from a targeted philanthropic institution into a pan-African entrepreneurship platform operating across all 54 African countries.

The report, launched on Wednesday, revealed that TEF has disbursed more than $120 million in non-refundable $5,000 seed capital directly to 24,633 young African entrepreneurs.

Their businesses have generated $4.2 billion in cumulative revenue and created more than 1.59 million direct and indirect jobs.

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The foundation said its interventions have also helped approximately 2.1 million Africans move above the $1.90-a-day poverty line and positively affected more than four million households.

In a LinkedIn post on Thursday following the launch of the report, Tony Elumelu, an economist and philanthropist who advocates Africapitalism, a philosophy that places the private sector at the centre of Africa’s long-term economic development, said the foundation was built around the belief that young Africans need access to capital rather than charity.

“Fifteen years ago my wife and I had a vision, and we laid down a challenge: that a young African with an idea does not need charity; they need capital, and someone willing to believe in them,” Elumelu said.

He added that the vision was based on the belief “that Africa could be transformed by entrepreneurship and a generation inspired to take control of their destiny.”

“Today, that challenge has been met. 24,633 entrepreneurs funded. All 54 African countries. More than $120 million deployed. And from it, 1.5 million jobs and $4.2 billion in revenue — created by Africans, for Africans,” he said.

Elumelu said the foundation’s impact report had been “rigorously researched and independently verified” and demonstrated how “luck can be democratised, and generational change delivered.”

He said the foundation intended to scale its work further, adding that “the job is not done.”

From $100m pledge to continent-wide platform

Pinnacle Daily reports that the TEF launched its flagship Entrepreneurship Programme in 2015 with a 10-year, $100 million commitment to support 10,000 entrepreneurs.

The programme has since exceeded that target, with the foundation saying strategic partnerships helped expand both its funding and reach.

The foundation opened its platform to development partners, governments and private-sector organisations from 2018, allowing additional entrepreneurs to receive funding and business support.

Partners included the United States African Development Foundation, which signed a $20 million joint agreement with TEF; the African Development Bank, which committed $5 million to support 1,000 entrepreneurs; and the European Union and OACPS, which committed €20 million through the Women Entrepreneurship for Africa initiative.

The UAE Office of Development Affairs and Khalifa Foundation also signed a $6 million agreement in 2025 to fund another 1,000 entrepreneurs.

Other partnerships included more than $10 million from subsidiaries of Heirs Holdings to support nearly 2,000 entrepreneurs in host communities, while Google.org provided grants for female-led businesses and artificial intelligence training.

Women account for 48 per cent of TEF-supported entrepreneurs, generating $319.5 million in annual revenue and creating more than 579,000 jobs, according to the report.

The foundation also said 65 per cent of its beneficiaries operate in fragile or conflict-affected countries, while persons with disabilities account for 10 per cent of beneficiaries and have created 150,220 jobs.

Through its TEFConnect digital platform, more than 2.5 million young Africans have received training.

The platform provides business education and mentorship in English, French, Portuguese and Arabic.

TEF has also expanded into green businesses, with 7,666 entrepreneurs trained through initiatives such as BeGreen Africa, while a partnership with Google.org introduced a 12-week artificial intelligence curriculum in 2025 to help small businesses use digital tools, automation and data analysis.

The foundation said its approach has also received academic recognition, with its “democratising luck” model published as teaching case studies by Harvard Business School, Cambridge Judge Business School and the University of Cape Town.

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