Talstack partners BII, Ventures Platform to teach ESG to African startups

Talstack, a corporate learning platform, has partnered with British International Investment (BII), the United Kingdom’s development finance institution, and Ventures Platform, a pan-African venture capital firm, to launch an environmental, social, and governance (ESG) programme to help African startups build more sustainable businesses.

The programme, which went live on Wednesday, offers a series of courses designed for founders and startup teams who want to understand and implement ESG practices as they grow. 

For many African startups, ESG remains an obligation to figure out when raising capital rather than something built into daily operations. As investors place greater weight on ESG, this programme is an attempt to turn compliance into what founders can understand and implement early.

A Bloomberg Intelligence survey found that nearly 85% of investors expect assets allocated to ESG strategies to grow over the next two years, showing how capital is likely to be deployed. Yet, for some startups, ESG remains difficult to implement.

“When people hear ESG, what they think about is a complex set of rules and policies or things they have to do to be able to either raise financing or access a certain type of capital,” said Kayode Oyewole, cofounder of Talstack. “But understanding the importance of this (ESG) is critical to the sustainable growth of their company.” 

ESG refers to a set of standards that guide and measure an organisation’s environmental and social impact, including emission reduction, climate change, waste management, labour practices, human rights, gender diversity, leadership oversight and direction, and board diversity.

Sonal Premjee, the investment director for venture capital at BII, told TechCabal that across BII’s venture portfolio and during investment discussions, many African startups lacked practical ESG capabilities suited to early‐stage businesses. 

“ESG was often treated as a later‐stage compliance exercise, while existing frameworks were too complex or designed for SMEs or larger corporates rather than lean startup teams,” Premjee said. “This left founders and VC managers without clear, usable guidance and core risks around people practices, supply chains and business integrity were being addressed too late—or not at all.”

Launched in 2023 by Seni Sulyman and Oyewole, Talstack is a business-to-business (B2B) Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company that delivers content, tools, and other infrastructure to support and upskill talents. It focuses on companies in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, and Ghana.

The ESG learning track is delivered through Talstack’s platform as a series of self-paced, pre-recorded courses, which comprises four courses: respectful workplaces, human resources (HR) and people management, anti-bribery and corruption, and supply chain risk management.

Each course is broken into modules that combine instruction with practical application. After completing a module, learners are assessed on their understanding and then guided through frameworks designed to help them implement what they have learned within their organisations.

Ventures Platform said it plans to integrate the ESG track into its founder onboarding process and is encouraging adoption across its portfolio, while exploring ways to extend the programme to other funds and ecosystem partners.

“We contributed ecosystem insights drawn from our experience investing and supporting companies,” said Damilola Teidi-Ayoola, Principal, Platform and Networks at Ventures Platform. “We were actively involved in the content review and development process, ensuring that there was alignment between both organisations.”

Oyewole shared that access to the programme is free for portfolio companies of Ventures Platform and BII. Other companies can access the courses through a paid Talstack subscription, ranging from ₦13,000 ($9.46) to ₦156,000 ($113.50) annually, which also unlocks the 400 other courses on the platform.