Ghana-based AI consultancy startup Aya Data has raised $900,000 in seed funding, bringing its total funding to $1.15 million. The startup, founded in 2021 by Freddie Monk and Ama Larbi-Siaw, employs individuals to collect and label data for the development of large language models like ChatGPT and Gemini.

Aya Data's products, AyaGrow and AyaSpeech, are AI solutions that empower commercial and smallholder farmers through precision agriculture and enable businesses to interact with consumers in spoken, local African languages. The startup aims to train 1000 data annotators, engineers, and scientists in the coming months, with a focus on helping African businesses leverage AI to increase their competitiveness.

This funding round is significant as it highlights the growing importance of startups like Aya Data in enabling the development of AI systems globally. With global tech companies like Meta and OpenAI outsourcing data labeling and annotation tasks to companies like Aya Data, this Ghana-based startup is poised to play a key role in the development of AI technology in Africa.