Nigeria’s Codar Raises $1.5M To Scale AI Skills Training

Nigeria’s Codar Raises $1.5M To Scale AI Skills Training

Quick Reads

• A Nigerian tech training company called Codar just got $1.5 million from investors some of it as an investment, some as a loan.

• The money will help Codar teach more people AI, coding, and cybersecurity skills, build new training centres, and give out more scholarships.

• Codar already has over 5,000 active students and has trained more than 70,000 people since it started in Lagos in 2022.

Nigerian edtech startup Codar has raised $1.5 million in a mix of equity and debt financing to expand its artificial intelligence and digital skills training programmes across Africa, the company announced this week. The Codar raises $1.5M round arrives as African economies grapple with a widening gap between demand for tech talent and the supply of job-ready graduates.

Founded in Lagos in 2022 by David Sokefun, Williams Olusegun, John Oduoye, and Emmanuel Asaolu, Codar built its reputation on project-based training in artificial intelligence, software development, cybersecurity, data analytics, and cloud computing. The company is backed by KWE4 Africa Venture Studio, an accelerator that supports early-stage technology ventures across the continent.

Codar currently serves more than 5,000 active learners and says it has reached over 70,000 students since launch, positioning it among the continent’s fastest-growing professional training providers, according to TechCabal.

The Fresh Capital Will Fund Four Priorities

The fresh capital will fund four priorities: expanding the AI curriculum, upgrading its online learning platform, opening new physical learning hubs, and broadening scholarship access for learners from underserved communities. Codar also plans to introduce multilingual learning options and pursue internationally recognised certification pathways for graduates, hoping to make its training relevant beyond Nigeria’s borders.

The round lands at a moment when African businesses are ramping up spending on AI, cloud infrastructure, and cybersecurity, even as venture funding across the broader tech sector has cooled. This round follows growing investor interest in African talent. Investors appear increasingly convinced that talent pipelines, not just software products, deserve capital.

By closing this round through a blend of equity and debt, Codar’s founders avoided heavy dilution while still securing enough runway to scale. If the plan holds, Codar could become a reference point for how African edtech ventures fund workforce development at scale, turning a persistent skills shortage into a long-term commercial opportunity.