Proparco completes pre-series-A investment in Kenyan tech school Moringa
Building on the seed investment by DOB Equity and $9.5 million funding by Mastercard Foundation, Moringa recently received an investment from Proparco to support its expansion outside Kenya. This has seen the tech-based learning institution start to train software engineers in Ghana and soon Nigeria with a plan to scale to other African countries in the next 12 months. Moringa, a career accelerator for tech professionals in Africa, has been training high school/university graduates to be software engineers and data scientists for the past seven years in Kenya and achieved market leadership training over 4,000 students with an employment rate of over 85%.
The investment comes at an exciting time with Moringa just agreeing to a curriculum licensing deal with the world’s leading coding boot camp, Flatiron School, and achieving ISO 9001:2015 certification. The stage is set for Moringa to play a significant role in developing African tech talent and connecting it to purposeful and significant earning opportunities whether full-time jobs, the gig economy, or becoming entrepreneurs.
Google published the Africa Developer Ecosystem report in 2021 which indicates that there has been an increased global demand for remote tech talent which was accelerated by the pandemic, creating more employment opportunities for African technology professionals.
The investment from Proparco will aid Moringa to prepare for series A funding in 2023. Apart from international expansion outside Kenya, the funding from Proparco will also facilitate the broadening of the range of courses offered by Moringa. Currently, the institution offers software engineering, data science, and soft skills courses with plans to offer courses in UI/UX design in the near future.
According to Snehar Shah, Moringa’s CEO, “The investment comes at an exciting time for Moringa as the institution expands to Ghana and Nigeria. We are keen to leverage this partnership to train many more students using the leading US Bootcamp curriculum from Flatiron School. In line with our vision of a world in which anyone can create their future, we welcome the support of Proparco to make our courses available in new markets in Africa.”
Françoise Lombard, Proparco’s CEO said, “Supporting the African tech ecosystem is one of Proparco’s key priorities. Through our investment in Moringa, Proparco is proud to support an ambitious edtech in its expansion in Africa and thus contribute to bridging the skills gap that has been affecting the growth of startups on the African continent.”