Grace Ashiru
GOMYCODE, an educational technology company based in Tunisia, has just completed a Series A funding round that totalled $8 million . It was spearheaded by Proparco and AfricInvest through CathayAfricInvest Innovation Fund. Wamda Capital, which had previously participated in Seed round, also invested.
The startup will be able to move closer to achieving its goal of expanding access to technological education through Africa and the Middle East with the assistance of the funds.
GOMYCODE first appeared in Tunisia but has since expanded to eight other countries across Africa and the Middle East. More than one thousand new students sign up for one of GOMYCODE’s thirty educational courses every month to acquire digital skills.
The company’s goal is to close the skills gap between the educational infrastructure in the Middle East and Africa and the digital skills required in the modern global labour market. By 2024, the startup company plans to have opened fifty new locations across twelve countries in the Middle East and Africa. According to Yahya Bouhlel, CEO and co-founder of GOMYCODE, “We are catering to a demand that virtually no other company is meeting at the scale as we do “.
Traditional training centres in Africa have out-of-date content and methods. International online players have difficulty getting African students because they don’t understand the local markets and charge too much. We are establishing ourselves as a leader in the region by implementing a model of education that combines traditional and online components, as well as teaching in twelve local languages. I want to express my gratitude to our investors for having faith in what we are attempting to accomplish, and I am thrilled about what is to come.
The courses offered by GOMYCODE use an innovative educational model known as blended education, a combination of self-directed active learning and instructor-led training. Blended education allows students to learn content at their own pace while posing a challenge to them with clearly defined checkpoints.
This model efficiently teaches students the skill sets employers seek out most often, offering more than 30 learning paths. It covers everything from web development to digital marketing and data science to artificial intelligence, and it’s affordable and available to everyone.
Through its job placement program, GOMYCODE has found employment for eighty per cent of its students. Additionally, the company has helped thousands of graduates change careers, advance in their careers, and diversify their income streams.
They have a more robust presence on both the African continent and in the Middle East; GOMYCODE also opened its doors in Nigeria, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Egypt, and Morocco because of the seed funding of $ 850,000 from investors such as Flat6labs and Wamda capital, among others, in October 2020.
The Series A funding will help the startup expand to 12 countries by 2024, including South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, and Saudi Arabia. It will also help the startup grow in countries where it is already present, like Nigeria and Egypt, which are two of the biggest markets in Africa.
“We are delighted to be a part of such an incredible journey with the GOMYCODE team,” said Khaled Ben Jilani, Senior Partner in Africinvest. And it fills us with joy to watch them enter this next stage of their development as they continue to mature. They have created a highly relevant, scalable, and affordable model, and it is using this to solve one of Africa’s most challenging and widespread problems.
The educational technology market in Africa is untapped, and solutions like GOMYCODE will positively affect everyone involved in the education and technology ecosystem.
