Moringa School has raised undisclosed funding from DOB Equity to provide remote on-line learning to equip students with the right digital skillset to enter the job market despite the COVID-19.
Moringa School says this is a further investment from DOB Equity as it had earlier invested in the school in October 2019 to help it capitalize on the fast-growing demand for technical-skilled professionals.
According to Audrey Cheng, Founder and CEO of Moringa: “In this rapidly-changing economic and business environment, Moringa remains focused on preparing our students for the evolving job market. We are thrilled by DOB’s follow-on investment, and with this continued support, Moringa is poised to adapt to the changing dynamics and emerge undoubtedly stronger.”
Moringa provides digital and professional training to students through short and medium-term courses (i.e., software engineering and data science), increasing their employability and access to the labor market.
Moringa says it worked tirelessly to transition its curriculum to remote learning, starting with its core software engineering and data science programs, enabling it to retain over 80% of its enrolled students. The company is also seeing growing interest for corporate training contracts as employers invest in training staff during the crisis.
Founded in 2014 by Audrey Cheng, a Taiwanese-American entrepreneur, Moringa School has not scaled as fast as the much-hyped Andela, a software training and development company backed with top global investors include Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg among others.
Just last week, Andela fired 135 staff across the four countries it operates in including Kenya, Uganda, and Nigeria. Eight months ago, the Venture-backed firm let go of approximately 420 junior engineers and staff to deliver stronger engineering support for its clients and has decided to go fully remote to cut costs.
Saskia van der Mast, co-CEO of DOB Equity, says: “Now, more than ever, the education sector needs investment to continue to drive learning and job opportunities for the rapidly growing young population in East Africa.”
“DOB will continue to support innovative companies led by the region’s most promising entrepreneurs at a time when our target communities are most vulnerable.”
Anne Njuki, Investment Manager of DOB Equity, comments: “DOB has been impressed by Moringa’s resilience through the Covid-19 crisis, and its continuing commitment to facilitate learning during this unprecedented disruption, particularly for its vulnerable low-income students. Through this increasingly challenging time for all, we believe that Moringa’s swift transition to remote learning equips the company to weather the current crisis, and positions it well for the future of learning.”
