AMI closes $1.8M Series A to fund pan-African growth

AMI is thrilled to announce our $1.8M Series A funding round to support expansion of our practical and scalable approach to skills development for Africa.

French impact investment firm Investisseurs & Partenaires (I&P) has invested $1M in AMI, joining our existing funders AHL Ventures and Argidius Foundation, who also contributed to the $1.8M round.

Skills development is one of the most exciting challenges and pressing needs facing Africa. At AMI, we’ve developed a practical and scalable solution that is already transforming organisations and careers across the continent, and we’re looking forward to reaching new people and places with this investment.

We’re incredibly grateful to all the partners, clients and friends who have supported us on this journey so far. Since our launch in 2014, we’ve developed Africa’s first social learning platform, established offices in Nairobi, Johannesburg and Kigali, and trained over 20,000 individuals through 70 blended learning programmes in 13 African countries. We’ve been privileged to work with multi-nationals like KLM, SC Johnson and Nestle, innovators like Mkopa, Zola, Copia and BitPesa and ambitious regional firms like Kenya’s Equity Group, KCB and Unga, and South Africa’s Pie City and MediaMark. We’ve also rolled out large-scale programmes reaching thousands of entrepreneurs and youth in partnership with major players like MasterCard Foundation, Shell Foundation, USAID, GIZ and others.

So much training and education in Africa and globally has focused on credentials and box-ticking. This simply won’t work if we are to unlock the next generation of African talent. We need people doing their jobs well, stepping up to lead, starting and growing businesses. We need organisations powered by strong teams at every level – not just at the top.

Over the last few years, we’ve worked really hard to ensure that in all AMI programmes – whether for seasoned executives, hustling entrepreneurs or young people just starting their careers – we focus on on-the-job performance. We don’t do ‘hit and run workshops’ (they might be fun, but they don’t work – the research is very clear on this). We don’t do formal exams (great for school leavers, not so much for managers). We work with our clients to deliver learning journeys that make a real difference to how individuals, teams and whole companies perform. More than 70% of larger companies, and almost 100% of SMEs, report tangible improvements in company performance after working with AMI.

This new investment will help us make our innovative web/mobile platform and blended methodology even more impactful and intuitive for companies and individuals across Africa. It will also allow us to adapt and expand our library of 65 online courses and 2000+ practical tools to help fill even more diverse skill gaps, for more organisations, in more languages.

We’re always looking for visionary clients and partners who want to transform their teams or empower entrepreneurs and youth across Africa. We’re also always on the look out for talented people to join our growing international team. So if you’d like to talk, please get in touch at info@africanmanage1.wpenginepowered.com.

Thank you!
Rebecca, Jonathan and the AMI team

Read the full press release here