ChipMango, a chip design company founded in 2022 by Ola Fadiran and Jovan Andjelich, has raised a $1.9 million seed round led by Atlantica Ventures, according to The Condia. DFS Labs, Madica, Kaleo Ventures, Trilinear Technologies and Malta Ventures also invested.
Designing chips without a factory
ChipMango does not make chips. It designs and verifies them, the engineering work that happens before a factory in Taiwan or South Korea produces anything. That work needs skilled engineers far more than it needs billions in equipment, which is the opening for countries without a semiconductor industry.
The company works with Nigerian universities, including Miva Open University, Obafemi Awolowo University and the University of Lagos, to find students with basic engineering training. It puts them through its own curriculum and then onto real chip-design projects for international clients, The Condia reports.
What the money is for
The round will expand ChipMango's engineering and product teams across Africa, Europe and the United States. A design centre in Malta is planned, backed by Malta Ventures, the government-backed fund in the round. The company also plans to support semiconductor skills and AI infrastructure work in Rwanda.
"The next era of AI will not be defined by software alone. It will depend on who can design the chips, systems and intelligent hardware that power it," Fadiran said, according to The Condia.
