Selected from a pool of over 20,000 applications, the new cohort emerged through a rigorous multi-stage process involving technical assessments, and interviews.

Their induction into the Interswitch Developer Academy highlights both the scale of interest in software engineering opportunities in Nigeria and Interswitch’s role in nurturing the next generation of highly skilled technology professionals.

The 9-month programme brings together talents across key engineering tracks, including Backend Development, DevOps, Mobile Development, Frontend Engineering, and Quality Assurance.

Designed as an intensive and structured learning experience, the Developer Academy combines theoretical instruction with real-world application, equipping participants with the skills required to thrive in an increasingly global and competitive technology landscape.

Commenting on the initiative, Mitchell Elegbe, founder and group chief executive officer, Interswitch, emphasised the importance of taking a long-term, ecosystem-driven approach to talent development.

“At Interswitch, we have always believed in the capacity to see beyond the immediate challenges and focus on long-term impact.

While the migration of skilled talent remains a reality, our approach is to actively shape the outcomes by building a strong and sustainable pipeline of technology professionals.

We are therefore committed to equipping individuals with the capabilities to contribute meaningfully to the broader technology ecosystem, locally and globally, not just for our own needs at Interswitch. In doing so, we are not only strengthening the industry but also reinforcing Nigeria’s position as a source of globally competitive engineering talent,” Elegbe said.

Beyond its immediate training objectives, the Interswitch’s Developer Academy is anchored on a broader strategic vision, one that addresses the ongoing migration of skilled talent from Nigeria and other developing economies.

As global demand for software engineers continues to rise, many highly skilled professionals are increasingly recruited by international organisations. Interswitch’s approach reframes this trend, positioning talent development both as a means of local capacity building and as an opportunity to strengthen Nigeria’s reputation as a global hub for technology expertise.

Also commenting, Franklin Ali, Group Chief Human Resources Officer, Interswitch, highlighted the broader impact of the programme. He stated:

“The Developer Academy reflects our long-term commitment to building talent at scale. We are equipping these young professionals not just with technical skills, but with the mindset, discipline, and adaptability required to thrive in diverse environments. Whether they build their careers within Interswitch, contribute to the local ecosystem, or explore global opportunities, they represent the strength and potential of Nigerian talent and carry forward the standard of excellence we are committed to building.”

Drawing parallels with the evolution of Nigeria’s entertainment industry, where local talent has successfully achieved global recognition, Interswitch envisions a similar trajectory for the technology sector, one in which Nigerian developers are not only participants in the global digital economy but key contributors shaping its future.

The Developer Academy also plays a critical role in addressing local industry needs. As fintechs, banks, and startups continue to scale, the demand for highly skilled engineers remains significant.

By consistently developing and releasing new cohorts of trained professionals into the ecosystem, Interswitch is contributing to a more resilient talent pipeline and supporting sustained innovation across the sector.

During the 9-month programme, participants will benefit from mentorship by experienced professionals, exposure to enterprise-grade systems, and the development of workplace readiness skills essential for today’s dynamic work environment.

At the end of the programme, top-performing interns may be offered full-time roles within Interswitch, while others are well-positioned to pursue opportunities across the broader technology landscape.

Further demonstrating its commitment to talent development at scale, Interswitch has also invested in dedicated learning infrastructure, including the opening of a new facility in Victoria Island, Lagos, designed to serve as a specialised hub for the Developer Academy and other training initiatives.

This move signals a deliberate effort to institutionalise talent development and expand capacity for future cohorts.

The continued expansion of the Developer Academy reflects Interswitch’s long-term vision of building a sustainable pipeline of globally competitive talent, positioning Nigeria, and Africa at large, as a leading source of innovation and technical expertise in the global digital economy.

The round was co-led by Moxxie Ventures and Mercuri, joined by EWOR, Tekton Ventures, Amigos Venture Capital and six unicorn founders. 

Their support comes only months after the company’s two young founders topped AndroidWorld, an influential benchmark for mobile-device automation, beating long-established research groups from Google DeepMind, ByteDance, Microsoft Research and Alibaba.

Unlike web developers, mobile teams usually wait weeks to push even small updates through. Minitap argues that this drag has held the industry back for years. 

The company says its platform lets teams work at a pace closer to the web, cutting feature-delivery cycles from six weeks to a few days.

Nicolas Dehandschoewercker, Minitap’s co-founder and CEO, said the long delays in mobile development impacted their motivation. “We spent two years building our first viral mobile product, today, and I’m embarrassed by that timeline,” he said. He added that “Mobile is 60% of internet usage but moves at 10% of web speed. Every consumer app company (Duolingo, Calm, Hinge etc) ships 5x more experiments on web than mobile. We built Minitap to close that gap for everyone.”

His co-founder, Luc Mahoux-Nakamura, stressed the need for faster testing across consumer apps. “Every consumer mobile company needs to experiment faster. The companies that run 10x more experiments will win their markets. We’re building the infrastructure that makes that speed possible.”

The pair grew up in a small village in Burgundy, studied side by side, and later built several projects together before launching Minitap. Their path included early products, time in military school, engineering research, and work on drone infrastructure, an experience they now say gave them a rare mix of skills.

Investors appear to agree. Daniel Dippold, founder and CEO of EWOR, described the team’s speed and technical range as a competitive advantage. 

“Nicolas is leading one of the fastest teams I’ve seen. It comes from years of working together, knowing mobile inside out, and understanding how to build AI systems that hold up. The combination of AI research capabilities, mobile development skills, and sheer hunger of will is unprecedented and ideal for solving this specific problem.”

Minitap’s platform is built on two key components: mobile-use, an open-source framework that allows automated systems to operate smartphones like real users; and minitap cloud, an infrastructure capable of spinning up thousands of mobile configurations at once. 

Together, these tools help teams generate code, test it across devices, flag errors, and deliver working features far faster than traditional workflows.

Their speedy progress on AndroidWorld brought attention earlier this year. Within their first 40 days, they reached the top of the benchmark and later released their framework openly, drawing more than 1,900 GitHub stars.

The seed round also attracted founders behind companies such as Hugging Face, Last.fm, Adjust, SumUp, FlixBus and Worldcoin, alongside operators from OpenAI, DeepMind, LangChain and LlamaIndex. Investors say the founders’ momentum was difficult to overlook. 

Katie Jacobs Stanton of Moxxie Ventures said: “When you see two 23-year-olds from rural France beat Google in 40 days, you recognize something rare. Nico and Luc are solving a massive problem that they uniquely understand and are moving at an urgent speed.”

Today, Minitap is being used by consumer mobile teams that want to run more experiments without expanding their engineering headcount. The company says its tools will eventually allow product managers to describe a feature, drop in a design, and have code generated and tested in a single afternoon.

Mercuri partner Esha Vatsa believes the long-term potential is vital. “Minitap is one of the first companies that is bringing agentic AI to mobile use and possibly the very first that is taking a full-stack approach to enable the use of AI coding agents for mobile app development. This is a substantial challenge and a huge opportunity that Nico and Luc are uniquely positioned to solve.”

Minitap founders say their vision is to enable the development of mobile apps that adapt themselves automatically, running experiments, studying user behaviour, generating improvements and rolling out new versions with minimal human involvement.