Talent Nation, a startup founded by Nigerian serial entrepreneur Iyinoluwa Aboyeji and South African-born entrepreneur Kesiah Valkin, has raised an undisclosed pre-seed round to train and deploy one million AI engineers from Africa into businesses worldwide over the next decade.
The round was co-led by Enza Capital and London-based LocalGlobe, with participation from Future Africa, Kaleo Ventures, Ajim Capital, Solving.org and Accelerate Africa.
The investment comes as businesses face growing pressure to adopt artificial intelligence while struggling to recruit engineers capable of integrating AI models into reliable, production-ready systems. Talent Nation is betting that expanding the supply of engineering talent, particularly in Africa, can lower the cost of deploying AI and open new opportunities for businesses and workers.
Through its Learn2Earn academy, Talent Nation trains, certifies and deploys engineers into organisations seeking to build and manage their own AI capabilities. The company says it has received more than 63,000 applications in 18 months, assessed more than 32,000 candidates and enrolled approximately 1,400 fellows across nine campuses in six cities. Fewer than 3% of applicants are admitted.
Its engineers are already working with clients including IHS Towers, the telecommunications infrastructure group listed on Nasdaq that was acquired by MTN.
Aboyeji, who previously co-founded African technology companies Andela, Flutterwave and Moove, serves as Talent Nation’s executive chairman. Valkin, who co-founded London-based 01 Founders, is the company’s chief executive.
“Talent is the final constraint to super intelligence,” Aboyeji said. He added that Talent Nation aims to make certified AI engineering talent accessible to organisations at a fraction of the cost of hiring from frontier AI labs or traditional consulting firms.
The company’s model combines selective recruitment with practical training and commercial placements. Applicants begin with an online assessment, followed by in-person trials evaluating technical aptitude, problem-solving and critical thinking. Candidates who meet its standards can proceed directly to deployment, while others enter three-, six- or 12-month training programmes.
Training combines peer-led learning, engineering projects, intensive buildathons, internships and practical work experience. Talent Nation says its approach is designed to identify people with strong technical potential and prepare them for enterprise engineering roles.
The business plans to use revenue from enterprise engagements to fund the development of additional engineers. Once employed, graduates contribute towards future cohorts, creating a financing model intended to expand training without requiring candidates to pay upfront fees.
For Enza Capital, the investment reflects a broader thesis that Africa’s constraints can create opportunities for globally competitive technology businesses, provided they can access the engineering talent needed to build them.
Sir John Lazar, Enza Capital’s general partner and president of the Royal Academy of Engineering, said the firm backed Talent Nation because of its founders’ ability to identify engineering talent and connect African professionals with valuable work while maintaining global standards.
Valkin said the broader adoption of AI would depend not only on technological advances but also on making engineering expertise more affordable and accessible to businesses of different sizes.
Talent Nation’s strategy comes as increasingly capable AI models generate more code, raising the importance of engineers who can evaluate outputs, test applications, integrate systems and ensure software works reliably in real-world environments.
Rather than competing solely for experienced engineers already in high demand, the company aims to expand the talent pool through training and certification, with the longer-term goal of helping businesses build and own AI capabilities instead of relying exclusively on expensive external providers.
Its ambition to train one million engineers over the next decade would require a substantial expansion of its current academy and deployment network. The company has not disclosed the size of the pre-seed round or provided a detailed timetable for reaching that target.
Talent Nation describes its approach through the slogan “AI for the rest of us”, positioning engineering talent as a way to extend AI adoption beyond large technology companies and well-funded research organisations.
