Holberton Inc. just announced that it has agreed to be acquired by ALG. Holberton is a seven-year-old coding school founded in Silicon Valley, and it has physical schools spread all over the globe. With its partnership with the African Leadership Group, it will split into two. Holberton’s technology platform will now be part of ALG’s ALX online learning platform for virtual learning.
Holberton’s co-founder, Julien Barbier, pointed out that the pandemic had put a lot of pressure on the company, given its early focus on in-person education. So, as these locations had to shut down because of the pandemic, Holberton quickly moved its curriculum online. Last year, it pivoted to mostly focusing on SaaS and started offering white-labeled online learning platforms to others.
Also, at the beginning of the pandemic, Sylvian Kalache– Barbier’s co-founder– left the company after which many potential acquirers approached Barbier but he didn’t think they were a good fit. The story changed with ALG as they “seemed like the right kind of fit”. Even though neither Holberton nor ALG disclosed the acquisition price, Barbier said that he was happy with the numbers. Barbier and most of the Holberton tech team will be joining the African Leadership Group, too.
ALG’s ALX is on a mission to teach leadership, entrepreneurship, and tech skills to thousands and millions of people. Fred Swaniker, founder of the group had this to say on his LinkedIn page yesterday: “I’m excited to announce that African Leadership International (ALI) has signed an agreement to acquire Silicon Valley-based Holberton Inc.– a Silicon Valley-founded, project-based, college alternative educating the next generation of Software engineers! Once complete, this acquisition will give ALI ownership of the advanced technology program that will enable us to provide global organizations access to significant untapped pools of talent that can bridge the growing global shortage of technology talent“. For a clearer understanding, ALI is part of ALG, and vice versa– they are under the same leadership.
He also said that being equipped with software engineering skills is essential for the future digital workspace, and this acquisition will change the lives of millions of young Africans.
We look forward to all the good things that this relationship will bring to Africa and the world at large. The African tech ecosystem will also experience a great positive change with the influx of software engineers that will emerge from this.
To get up-to-date news on African Tech startups, kindly subscribe to our newsletter and turn on the notification on this website.
