Africa-focused ed-tech startup, Semicolon Africa, has closed a US$1.2 million seed funding round.
Participants in the funding round included angel investors and venture capital firms like Launch Africa Ventures and Consonance Investment Managers.
Semicolon Africa will use the investment to increase its project delivery capacity, training, and talent management.
Founded in 2019 by software engineer, Sam Immanuel, Semicolon Africa creates employment and economic opportunities by training software engineers and techpreneurs.
Semicolon Africa’s mission is to develop a generation of software engineers that will solve problems and create economic opportunities by nurturing talent, fostering innovation, addressing tech-skill gaps, and building a thriving tech ecosystem.
It offers a one-year intensive training program that is focused on software engineering, problem-solving, and business management skills.
When the training program is completed, the students (called Natives), have the choice of either securing employment with hiring partners or become techpreneurs if they have ideas they intend to turn into businesses.
Since its inception, the ed-tech startup has inducted eight cohorts and graduated four cohorts of software engineers.
Semicolon Africa believes that, with the help of this new capital, it will reduce the unemployment rate in the continent.
It plans to empower and deploy thousands of skilled software engineers yearly, and hopes to grow and become the largest technology capacity-development hub in the continent’s ecosystem.
Semicolon Africa currently offers the technical support (training, early business support, advisory, and product development) that its techpreneurs need to develop their startup ideas into thriving businesses.
This has led the startup to renew its focus on Semicolon Ventures, an arm of its business that has already birthed 20 new startups from its students.
The startups — which cut across various sectors like healthcare, education, finance, tourism, insurance, transportation, construction, etc., — are solving problems with technology and creating jobs opportunities as well.
In addition to training software engineers and techpreneurs, Semicolon Africa, through Semicolon Labs, also serves as strategic partner and renders services such as corporate training, project delivery, and project outsourcing to companies seeking a digital transformation of their operations.
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