Lagos- and Berlin-based startup Propel has secured $2.74 million (€2.5 million) in seed investment and the two-year-old talent matching startup intends to build sustainable talent pipelines for communities and help global companies derisk the process of hiring remote talent from emerging markets, particularly in Africa.
Amsterdam-based No Such Ventures led the round, with participation from APX, Golden Egg Check, and Future of Learning Fund. Propel founded in 2020 by Sunkanmi Ola, Seun Owolabi, and Abel Agoi, intends to use the investment to drive the roll-out and adoption of its community-as-a-service platform and drive €1 million in revenue generated for communities by Q4 next year.
Speaking on the investment, Sophie Heijenberg, an investor at No Such Ventures, said, “Propel’s unique, community-focused approach to driving the open talent economy sets them apart and is a solid addition to the Future of Work category. We’re bullish about their roadmap and super-excited to partner with them on this growth journey.”
We realized communities are the building blocks of any tech ecosystem, particularly emerging market ecosystems, but nobody has been building for communities and the distribution layer for the tech talent pipeline had been missing. Most tech communities build their pool and upskill, but the last mile where you convert these talents to jobs is missing and communities struggle in that regard.
Sunkanmi Ola, Propel CEO
So how does Propel make a profit? Apart from receiving a chunk of its revenue from hiring and placement fees and rebates, Ola added that the community also receives a fraction of these fees.
If a community member gets placed, the community gets a bit of that revenue to add to their coffers. So we’re also creating new financial revenue streams for communities that did not exist before, where they always have to depend on just grants or sponsorships. We’re supercharging communities and we’re providing rockets for them to be able to grow to the next level.
The startup connects to the diverse talent pools within these tech communities, spanning multiple skill sets from software development to design, data science to no-code, and other digital transformation skills, in exchange for providing last-mile infrastructure.
Propel has worked with companies like the aforementioned and Orange Telecoms, Stepstone, and a roster of startups and scaleups across Europe for various purposes, including hiring talent, co-creating community hackathons, and designing DEI initiatives, to name a few.
Using a “community-as-a-service” business model, Propel makes this pipeline available to global companies, and the 25-person team has to date placed more than 550 people into job roles across multiple countries. has offices in Berlin, Lagos, Amsterdam, Johannesburg, London, and Nairobi.
And to date, the company, backed by Google Black Founders in Europe and raised over €3 million, will look to scale its community platform, launch new client offerings, and deepen its ecosystem of communities going forward.
