Editor’s note: African-Startups is a sister publication of EU-Startups, bringing trusted coverage of startups, venture capital, and innovation across Africa.
Africa Jobs Fund has invested in PeopleGateway, an Italian startup building the infrastructure for labour mobility from Africa into Europe.
The investment funds PeopleGateway’s first corridor – training hospitality workers on Kenya’s coast to work in Italian hotels and restaurants.
PeopleGateway was founded by Daniele Albanese, together with Enzima12, a venture builder focused on human capital development, and Migration AI Studio, a startup studio building technology for international mobility.
The company trains candidates in their home country, manages permits and visas, and supports workers after they relocate to Italy, working alongside licensed labour agencies that handle recruitment and placement.
Albanese has spent close to 20 years building legal migration routes. He was previously Head of Europe Programs at Talent Beyond Boundaries, where he worked with governments and employers to open skilled migration pathways for displaced people.
Before that, at Caritas Italiana and Consorzio Communitas, he ran humanitarian and university mobility programmes across Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
PeopleGateway is starting in Malindi, Kenya. An Italian space programme, San Marco (run by Sapienza University of Rome in partnership with NASA) built a launch site near the town in the 1960s, and the Italian families who stayed on helped grow a tourism economy of Italian-run hotels and resorts. As a result, the region already has a hospitality workforce that speaks Italian and has experience working in Italian-run properties.
“When we first met Daniele, he was ready to launch but still deciding where to start for his first cohort. We made the case for focusing on Sub-Saharan Africa, where the income gains for workers and their families are largest, and worked with him to find the right place to begin,” said Daniel Yu (Founding Partner of Africa Job Funds) and Alex Mina (Italy Labour Mobility)
The investment funds PeopleGateway’s first corridor, training and relocating hospitality workers from Malindi to jobs in Italy.
Workers see take-home pay rise from around $185 to $1,415 a month, roughly seven times their earnings at home; many roles also include free housing and meals, worth about $576 a month.
Africa Jobs Fund structured its investment as revenue-based financing, meaning capital returns to the fund as PeopleGateway grows, to be redeployed into future investments.
PeopleGateway plans to expand the model beyond hospitality into other labour-short sectors in Italy, including care, construction and logistics, while broadening its sourcing to other African talent pools and additional European destination markets.
As a result, the Italian startup plans to focus on three key areas: a dedicated founder, a solid legal framework with strong demand, and a talent pool with the right skills that employers need.
“A successful Malindi corridor could serve as a model to replicate in other sectors in Italy, like care, construction, and logistics. This approach can also tap into more African talent and new European markets. By creating a well-managed pathway, we can show employers and policymakers that moving workers between Africa and Europe can be safe, compliant, and profitable,” conclude Daniel Yu.
The announcement comes a few days after Africa Jobs Fund invested an undisclosed amount in Velocity, a labour mobility startup that trains African nurses in German and places them in jobs at German hospitals.
