AltSchool Africa, a Nigerian startup training people to become junior to mid-level engineers, has announced it has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding to scale its efforts.
“You might need a BSc if you want to be a doctor or nurse and some of these other skills. But when it comes to being a software engineer or digital skills, you really don’t,” said the CEO Adewale Yusuf
“We need to find a shortcut for people, whereby they will be able to make money and provide for their family and add value to the economy. That’s one of the reasons we launched AltSchool because if a lot of people can have marketable skills, then I think we can solve a massive problem in the market.”
Olugbenga “GB” Agboola, Flutterwave co-founder and CEO; Shola Akinlade, Paystack co-founder and CEO; Folarin Falana, a Nigerian artist known as Falzthebahdguy; and Akitoye Balogun, a Nigerian artist known as Ajebutter22 are among the investors in this round. Voltron Capital, Nestcoin, Pledges, and Odba VC also invested.
Read also : One Payment Gets Regulatory Licence for Payment Services in Nigeria
AltSchool intends to use the funds to expand its content and curriculum, as well as its technology infrastructure and community concept, which will bring students together offline to network and learn.
Investors went after the startup because it has generated considerable traction since it was founded. More than 8,000 people have applied to join in AltSchool’s software engineering program, which begins in April (the application price is $10,000, nearly $20). These applications came from 19 nations (14 of which were African), with Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, and Botswana receiving the most entries, according to Yusuf.
A Look At What The Startup Does
Adewale Yusuf founded AltSchool alongside Akintunde Sultan and Opeyemi Awoyemi in October 2021.
Yusuf first considered creating a physical campus in 2020, where he and his team would teach software engineers for international prospects. Yusuf attempted to pull this off by meeting with educational stakeholders at a public university in Ife, a nearby town close to agos, but the agreement fell through.
Read also : Revolutionalising Legal Practice With Technology
Following that, the team concentrated on growing sister firm and Techstars-backed TalentQL, creating products like Pipeline, which trained mid-level engineers, turned them into senior engineers, and placed them in worldwide companies. However, after more research, Yusuf discovered what was required to make his previous proposal work: a remote-centric approach.
AltSchool is an online school with a curriculum that helps non-technical people develop their technical and soft skills while partnering with higher education institutions to grant diploma certifications. The business model is similar to BloomTech’s (formerly Lambda School).
Participants in the program must have a high school diploma and be computer savvy, according to the company’s website.
Students who apply to the program are given a home study package to help them prepare for an assessment test. Those who are accepted into the school and achieve an 85 percent pass rate will enroll in a software engineering course that has three tracks: frontend engineering, backend engineering, and cloud engineering. It’s a one-year program in which students complete classes for nine months (three semesters) before gaining experience through a three-month internship at a local tech company.
AltSchool uses an income-sharing agreement (ISA), which means that when students finish the program and are hired, they must pay $500 in whole or in increments of $50 over ten months or $100 over five months.
According to Yusuf, the ISA model may be phased out for the next group of students. Instead, the organization may opt for a subscription model, in which students pay $20-$50 each month for the duration of their program.
Read also : Important Factors to Consider While Building a Business Intelligence Programme for Your Organisation
That said, AltSchool makes provision for those who don’t get admitted into its program. They can access the platform’s first-semester content for free and practice. If they stick to the end of the three-month curriculum, AltSchool will provide avenues for them to complete the entire nine-month program.
Courses on product, blockchain, and data are in the works at AltSchool. It plans to release the product modules, which include product management, marketing, and design, by the second quarter of this year. In addition, the company is looking into B2B relationships with private schools in Nigeria and Africa that would use AltSchool’s curriculum in their classrooms.
AltSchool Africa AltSchool Africa
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer