Educational technology has been gaining traction in Africa, and now, one of the leading Nigerian educational technology startups, AltSchool Africa, has received a major boost. The Rwandan Innovation Fund has provided the startup with $30 million in funding to fuel its growth. This investment is part of a larger effort to make Rwanda an African tech leader.
AltSchool, co-founded by Adewale Yusuf, Akintunde Sultan, and Opeyemi Awoyemi, is an online coding bootcamp and digital skills training platform. It offers courses in business, data, software engineering, and other fields. The monthly fees range from $20 to $50, and AltSchool also offers income-sharing agreements for students, where they pay a percentage of their earnings after getting jobs.
AltSchool opened its Rwanda office last year and has four full-time staff, with plans to continue to expand. The startup has already trained 20,000 learners in eight African countries, and its goal is to help individuals get started on the career path of their choice. This investment from the Rwandan Innovation Fund is a vote of confidence in AltSchool, and it will help the startup work toward closing Africa’s tech talent gap and empowering youth employment.
This is the second external funding round for AltSchool, following a $1 million pre-seed round in 2022. The Rwandan Innovation Fund also invested in AltSchool’s $3 million seed funding round in April. The fund was originally launched in 2021 with a $30 million loan from the African Development Bank, and it hopes to raise another $30 million from private investors and $8.6 million from the Rwandan government.
Educational technology is playing a key role in helping students gain the skills and insight they need to succeed in the job market. With the strategic support of Rwanda’s innovation fund, AltSchool is well positioned to continue providing quality training and job placement in both tech and non-tech fields. Teachers and educators can take comfort in knowing that there is a platform available to help students gain the digital skills they need to succeed.
