Africa’s Top-Funded Defencetech Upstart Turns To University To Solve Its Talent Problem

Terra Industries, the Nigerian defence technology startup that has raised USD 34 M this year from investors including Palantir-linked 8VC and Lux Capital, is partnering with Miva Open University to build robotics and drone laboratories across the university’s learning centres, starting with a pilot in Abuja.

Under the agreement, Miva students will learn to design, assemble, test and fly drones as part of their academic programmes. Terra will run hands-on workshops, train faculty, and offer internships and jobs to top performers.

The company says the partnership was borne out of the simple calculation that Nigeria’s drone industry cannot scale without the engineers to build it.

Terra operates a 15,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Abuja, the largest drone factory in Africa, and is constructing a 34,000-square-foot plant in Ghana. The company’s autonomous systems already protect infrastructure assets valued at roughly USD 11 B across eight African countries. But hardware alone is not enough.

“We are building tools designed for the realities on the ground,” Terra CEO Nathan Nwachuku said in February, after the company’s second funding round. “Security technology should not always be imported when local innovation can respond faster and more effectively.”

That local innovation depends on a pipeline of trained talent. Nigeria’s defence sector has historically relied on imported systems with limited technology transfer. The Nigerian Army has publicly acknowledged constraints caused by “inadequate skilled manpower” in drone warfare and armament development.

Miva, Nigeria’s first private open university, graduated 1,280 students at its maiden convocation in June. The institution has since launched a bachelor’s degree in Artificial Intelligence and announced plans to expand into robotics and drone laboratories.

“By mastering autonomous systems, aerial robotics, and hardware engineering, our students are preparing to solve real-world Nigerian challenges,” Miva Chancellor Sim Shayaga said at the convocation.

The Terra-Miva partnership mirrors a strategy unfolding elsewhere in Nigeria’s emerging defence sector. In May, Terra’s CEO committed NGN 40 M (~USD 29 K) to support the South-East Maths Olympiad, with summer internships at Terra for winners.

In February, Terra signed a joint venture agreement with the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) to establish local production lines for drones, robotics and cybersecurity systems. That agreement explicitly includes “training programmes for staff from both organisations”.

This suggests the willingness of Terra to not only build drones but also the ecosystem that will sustain them.

There’s a sense of urgency kicking in on that front. Nigeria’s House of Representatives this month called for a “National Drone Industrialisation Policy” to transform the country’s drone manufacturing sector “from its current entrepreneurial stage to a structured, state-supported strategic industry”. Lawmakers noted that Nigeria possesses “a pool of engineering talent, a growing technology entrepreneurship ecosystem”, but lacks the structured policy and capital to match.

The Miva partnership offers a direct line to that talent pool for Terra while providing students with hands-on experience in a sector that is attracting global capital.

“We are shifting the narrative from consuming technology to actively engineering it,” Shayaga said.