SA’s Zindi secures $1m in a seed round for growth

Zindi, a professional network of data scientists based in South Africa, has raised a US$1 million seed funding round to help it build on its impressive early growth.

Zindi, founded in 2018 by Celina Lee, Megan Yates, and Ekow Duker with the belief that data science should be accessible to all, hosts a community of over 34,000 data scientists who use machine learning and AI to solve some of the world’s most pressing business and social challenges.

Companies come to Zindi to find top-tier solutions and talent for their businesses. Its registered users come from 150 different countries, and Zindi’s user base has nearly doubled in the last year. The startup has completed over 100 challenges and provided over 100 machine learning solutions to clients.

After raising a US$1 million seed round led by San Francisco-based Shakti VC, along with Launch Africa Ventures, Founders Factory Africa, and five35, the startup now plans to expand further. Lee stated that Zindi had plans for future growth.

“We are an African-based platform with a global reach.” So far, our primary focus has been on expanding into the African market. We will be the continent’s go-to platform for all data scientists and aspiring data scientists. “It is entirely possible that if we can get it right at scale in Africa, if we can create a world where companies, data sets, and talent are seamlessly connecting on the Zindi platform to create new exciting value, we could replicate this model in other emerging market contexts where many of the opportunities and challenges are similar,” she said.

“We’ve already seen data scientists from Kenya, Tunisia, and India collaborate on Zindi to solve a problem for a South African organization.” We shared frustration at seeing African companies sitting on unprecedented amounts of data, as well as excitement about data science, AI, and machine learning but not knowing where to begin. They frequently assumed that they needed to look outside of Africa to find the people who could assist them.”

With its mission of making data science and AI accessible to everyone, Zindi fills this void.

“This means that all companies can harness the power of their data; people can pursue careers in data science regardless of race, gender, or geography; and AI solutions are appropriately designed to positively impact the everyday lives of all people around the world,” Lee explained.

The startup charges businesses a fee to post a challenge on Zindi, and then crowdsources machine learning solutions for them.

“This could be used for anything from predicting customer churn and cross-selling products to predicting flood extents using weather data.” Companies hire hundreds of talented data scientists to work on their problem, and in the end, they own the intellectual property for the top three solutions,” Lee explained.

“We also make money in talent placement. We source top candidates with the right skill sets for companies. We are able to draw on the candidates’ actual performance and engagement on the Zindi platform.”