GOMYCODE, a Tunisia-based edtech startup, has successfully completed its series A funding round, raising $8 million.
This funding round comes after the startup raised a seed fund of $850,000 in October, 2020, bringing the the total funds raised by GOMYCODE to $8.85 million.
The recently completed Series A funding was led by AfricInvest, through its Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Fund (CAIF), and French-based development finance institution, Proparco. Other participants in the round includes returning investor – Wamda Capital.
The startup, which is currently present in 8 African countries, was founded in 2017 by Yahya Bouhlel.
Bouhlel founded GOMYCODE to bridge the lacuna created by the limited number of engineers in Tunisia – a problem encountered by his brother after returning to Tunisia.
Amine Bouhlel, Yahya Bouhlel’s elder brother, worked with Amazon UK after his education. He later moved to Tunisia To launch a subsidiary of a French tech startup. During this process, Amine Bouhlel found it difficult to gather a handful of developers for the intended project.
“At that time, I had just graduated from high school and I had a free summer. Amine was struggling to find higher web developers. So the idea of building a school or a learning experience with the spirit of Silicon Valley came, and we started GOMYCODE as a summer project and camp and grew that year.” Amine, the company’s chief operating officer, held the title of CCO for Jumia Tunisia from 2018 to 2020
GOMYCODE currently have operations running in Tunisia, Bahrain, Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, Ivory Coast, Senegal, and Nigeria. With the newly raised funds, GOMYCODE plans to spread its business to four other countries: Kenya, Ghana, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia.
“Local traditional training centers offer outdated content and methodology, and international online players struggle to enroll African students due to their lack of understanding of local markets and unaffordable price points. We have a blended education model, we teach in twelve local languages, and we’re positioning ourselves as a regional leader,” Bouhlel said.
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GOMYCODE offers training in different tech-related courses: Web Development, Digital Marketing, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, and a couple of others. Students learning on the platform are expected to learn half of the time online, and the other half at a physical training centres.
“We’re addressing a demand that almost no other company is capturing at our scale. Local traditional training centers offer outdated content and methodology, and international online players struggle to enroll African students due to their lack of understanding of local markets and unaffordable price points. We have a blended education model, we teach in twelve local languages, and we’re positioning ourselves as a regional leader,” Yahya Bouhlel, who also doubles as the CEO, said.
The startup explains that it takes its students through two sessions: a 3-month skills-driven introductory courses, and a 5-month-long career-driven studies.
GOMYCODE prides itself of having an 80% placement rate for students that go through its programs.