South African startup The Gradient Boost, which has launched an online mentor-guided data science school to accelerate learning processes, has expanded into Nigeria after raising a round of seed funding.
Disrupt Africa reported in May The Gradient Boost had launched its “Introduction to Data Science” course, aiming to make digital learning more effective by combining it with mentorship.
Its students have already been hired by companies like Sparkle, Spacepen and Investec, and the startup has now raised a seed round to grow further. The funding comes from Dr Dumebi Okwechime, the chief decision scientist at Renmoney who previously headed the Data Science team at Barclaycard in the United Kingdom (UK).
Using the funding, The Gradient Boost is now offering students in Nigeria the opportunity to join its four-month programme without paying any upfront costs. The next intake is scheduled for the first week of November.
“The funding is a mixture of him resonating with our vision,our team, our business model and the gap in data science talent that he observed from building a Data Science team from scratch at Renmoney, and seed funding to help us continue paying the mentors on our platform, our Teaching Assistants and other key hires we will be making,” said co-founder Emmanuel Sibanda.
