Social Impact Ventures invests in Samasource

We are excited to announce we have recently invested in Samasource, a rapidly scaling tech company with a unique impact workforce sourcing model.

Samasource is a market leader in data services and machine learning for Artificial Intelligence. Samasource’s mission is to move people out of poverty through digital work. Samasource hires over 90% of her workforce from low-income backgrounds and marginalized populations in Africa, including unemployed urban and rural youth, that are traditionally excluded from the formal economy. Since its start in 2008 Samasource has provided digital training to over 4,000 young people and lifted over 10,000 people out of poverty.

Samasource delivers high quality data services to global companies with the best prospects for long-term growth, including top tier tech companies such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Volkswagen. Samasource specializes in computer vision technologies, from self-driving cars to smart hardware. The rise of artificial intelligence and autonomous technologies has created a surge in demand for the analysis of digital images. Computer vision training turned out to be perfect for the young ambitious Samasource workforce in Kenia and Uganda.

“Samasource’s business is rooted in social impact, and as we made the transition to take on investment capital for the first time, I wanted to ensure we partnered with investors who share our values. Social Impact Ventures is a leader in true impact investing — rooted in measurable social outcomes and financial results, and we’re thrilled to have them on board.” Leila Janah, founder & CEO Samasource

We are part of a consortium of investors with Ridge Ventures (Data & AI specialist) and Salesforce Ventures, together we support Samasource to become the fastest growing tech company on the African continent.
We believe Samasource is a perfect fit with our own mission. Its ambitious women-led leadership team creates both sustainable and inclusive growth by providing massive impact on the lives of thousands of African families, proving that high quality digital work can be done by people from the lowest income areas.