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Africa Jobs Fund has invested in Velocity, a labour mobility startup that trains African nurses in German and places them in jobs at German hospitals.
While the exact size of the investment was not disclosed, the investment will help Velocity expand its language training programme into Malawi and Zambia. The investment, announced by Africa Jobs Fund’s Ben Hyman, extends a model that has so far focused on Kenyan nurses to two new source countries facing similar surpluses of trained but underemployed nursing talent.
“Germany is short of tens of thousands of nurses and has spent a decade making it easier for qualified foreign ones to arrive, including an accelerated skilled worker procedure and recognition pathways for non-EU qualifications,” said Ben Hyman, Operating Partner, Africa Jobs Fund.
Velocity was founded by Laliteswar Kumar, Siddharth Gusain and Betty Chelangat and launched in Kenya in June 2025. Kumar previously served as the founding Africa Director at Evidence Action and as the Africa Managing Director at the Global Innovation Fund, while Gusain has a background in retail, banking, and consulting, and Chelangat has worked at startups in the US, UK, and Kenya.
The company teaches qualified nurses German to the B2 proficiency level required by German employers and regulators, then works with placement partners to match graduates with hospital jobs.
Its German classes are delivered fully online by Kenyan nurses already working in Germany, using a language-learning app Velocity built for its learners, and typically take about ten months of part-time study to complete.
It sets itself apart from other language learning apps by having employers, rather than learners, cover the bulk of training costs through a placement fee that includes tuition, flights, and visa expenses. Nurses joining the platform pay only a small, refundable commitment fee.
According to the Africa Jobs Fund, Germany’s shortage of tens of thousands of nurses can be filled by a large pool of unemployed nurses from Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia. It cites the Nursing Council of Kenya’s data, which shows that more than 40% of registered nurses are either unemployed or underemployed.
The economic impact is profound, with Africa Jobs Fund estimating that a Malawian nurse earning the equivalent of about $35.1 (€117) a month at home could start at $2,908 (€2,500) monthly as a nursing aide in Germany, rising to roughly $4071.2 (€3,500) a month after passing a German registration exam, a roughly 25x increase in after-tax, post-remittance income.
Some Kenyan nurses already placed through Velocity, surveyed by the firm, said they planned to send home $581.6 (€500) to $872.4 (€750) a month, funds they intend to use for siblings’ school fees, family healthcare and land purchases.
Velocity has more than 300 active learners and a waitlist exceeding 2,500, and every candidate who has reached the interview stage with an employer has been placed. Germany currently issues fewer than 10 work permits a year to Malawians and about 20 to Zambians. If Velocity places 25 Malawian nurses in Germany next year, it could roughly triple total labour mobility between the two countries.
