Talent Nation, a startup chaired by Andela co-founder Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, has raised an undisclosed pre-seed round to train and place 1 million African AI engineers with businesses worldwide over the next decade.
The company bets that wider AI adoption will increase demand for engineers who can turn AI models into reliable, production-ready systems. Talent Nation says it can supply certified engineers for a fraction of what frontier AI labs and consulting firms charge for top AI talent.
Enza Capital and London-based LocalGlobe co-led the round. Future Africa, Kaleo Ventures, Ajim Capital, Solving.org and Accelerate Africa also invested. The company did not disclose the amount.
"Talent is the final constraint to super intelligence," said Aboyeji, Talent Nation's executive chairman.
Aboyeji co-founded the company with Kesiah Valkin, a South African-born lawyer who serves as chief executive. Valkin previously co-founded 01 Founders, a London company whose clients included Peloton and Faculty.ai.
"Technological breakthroughs alone will not deliver widespread adoption," Valkin said.
How the academy works
Talent Nation trains, certifies and deploys engineers through its Learn2Earn academy. The company says it has received more than 63,000 applications in 18 months and assessed more than 32,000 candidates. About 1,400 fellows now train across nine campuses in six cities.
The academy admits fewer than 3% of applicants. Candidates first take an online test they can complete on a phone. Those who pass attend weekly in-person trials at centers in Nigeria, where assessors test technical skill, problem-solving and critical thinking.
Experienced engineers who meet the standard go straight to client work. Others enter training programs of three, six or 12 months. Fellows learn from peers, work on engineering projects and join intensive buildathons across the campuses.
Talent Nation engineers already work with clients including IHS Towers, the Nasdaq-listed telecom infrastructure group recently acquired by MTN.
Who pays
Trainees pay nothing upfront. Businesses pay for the engineers they hire, and that revenue funds new cohorts. Once employed, graduates contribute toward the cost of training the engineers who follow them.
The approach resembles income-sharing models that coding schools use elsewhere. It also echoes Andela, which Aboyeji co-founded in 2014 to train African software developers for global companies. Aboyeji also co-founded payments company Flutterwave and vehicle financing company Moove.
Sir John Lazar, a general partner at Enza Capital and president of the Royal Academy of Engineering, said the founders could find talented engineers and build paths for them into well-paid work in both Lagos and London.
Scale and risks
The target sets a steep pace. Reaching 1 million engineers in 10 years would require about 100,000 a year, compared with the academy's roughly 1,400 current fellows.
The model also depends on steady demand from foreign employers. Earlier talent platforms struggled when tech hiring slowed, and remote work rules tightened.
Talent Nation enters a crowded field of African AI skills programs. Meta, Nigeria's government-backed AI Academy, Google-supported training efforts, and the AISCA platform in Kigali, Rwanda, all train African engineers in AI.
