Iyinoluwa Aboyeji-backed Talent Nation Bags Pre-Seed Funding To Raise 1M African AI Engineers

Talent Nation, a Nigerian AI engineering talent platform co-founded by serial entrepreneur Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, has raised an undisclosed pre-seed funding round to train and deploy one million African AI engineers over the next decade.

The round was co-led by Enza Capital and UK-based LocalGlobe, with participation from Future Africa, Kaleo Ventures, Ajim Capital, Solving.org and Accelerate Africa.

Founded by Aboyeji and South African-born entrepreneur Kesiah Valkin, who serves as CEO, Talent Nation trains, certifies and deploys AI engineers through its Learn2Earn academy.

The platform has received over 63,000 applications in 18 months and currently has about 1,400 fellows across nine campuses in six cities. Its engineers already work with enterprise clients, including IHS Towers.