Semicolon Africa, an edTech startup, has closed a $1.2 million seed round of funding. The round which was oversubscribed had participation from angels and VCs like Launch Africa Ventures and Consonance Investment Managers.
Founded in 2019 by Sam Immanuel, Semicolon is focused on preparing young people and companies in Africa for the digital economy by providing the requisite technology skills for Africa’s growing tech industry.
The mission of Semicolon is to develop a generation of software engineering talent that will solve problems and create economic opportunities by addressing tech-skill gaps, nurturing talent, fostering innovation, and building a thriving tech ecosystem.
The enterprise offers a one-year intensive training program that is focused on problem-solving, software engineering, and business management skills. Upon completion, Natives (as the students are called) have one of two career paths – employment with hiring partners or techpreneurship for those with ideas they want to turn into businesses.
Since its inception, Semicolon has onboarded nine cohorts and graduated four cohorts of software engineers.
In 2020, Google and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in a joint report disclosed that there are only 690,000 professional developers in Africa and that the top training pathways were being self-taught and through university programs. This figure represents 0.2% of the 1.3 billion people in the continent. The report reinforces the need to grow more tech talent in order to strengthen the ecosystem that is capable of changing the course of Africa’s history.
The funds will be used by Semicolon to increase its training, talent management, and project delivery capacity.
