Andela.com is a Software developer training and outsourcing company. Andela invests in Africa’s most talented software engineers to help companies solve the technical talent shortage and build high-performing distributed engineering teams.
Andela extends engineering teams with world-class software developers.
Andela trains and educates qualified African developers, regardless of age or income, with leading developers who teach them to code then and place them as full-time distributed team members with companies.
Andela addresses a major skills gap: a shortage of qualified software developers. Its four-year program begins with six months of training in coding.
After that, developers divide their time between academic work and real-world projects with international tech companies.”
Did you know? Andela was coined from the name ‘Mandela’.
It began in Lagos Nigeria where they targeted to bridge the gap between companies and employees’ ecosystem and has now grown to multiple continents.
With a vision of A world where the most talented people can build a career commensurate with their ability – not their race, gender, or geography meaning they exist to unlock human potential irrespective of the surrounding or infrastructure involved.
The international growth is due to the tremendous evolving tech world and the seamless need of companies to tap global brilliance worldwide.
Since setting up campuses in 2014 in Lagos, Nigeria, and Nairobi, Kenya, Andela has been flooded with more than 40,000 applications. It selected 250 for paid, four-year fellowships working with tech leaders including Udacity, Microsoft, and Facebook.
Andela recently got a $24 million vote of confidence from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan’s Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and other venture capital sources. It’s using the money to open a third campus and become a major tech trainer across the continent
Founders
The company has 4 founders.
Jeremy Johnson is a technology entrepreneur and the co-founder and CEO of Andela, a US company based in Africa that connects talented African software developers with foreign companies, like Upwork. He is also the President of Strategic Initiatives at 2U, an educational technology company.
He serves on the board of the Young Entrepreneur Council and the education non-profit PENCIL and was listed as Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2013 and 2014.
Christina Sass is the Co-Founder and President of Andela
Iyinoluwa Aboyeji is an entrepreneur in the public interest. He is passionate about partnering with missionary talent and capital to build an African future. co-founded Andela – Africa’s largest engineering organization with over 1000 software engineers which has received investment from Mark Zuckerberg and Google Ventures amongst others.
Having joined Andela in 2018 he is Co-founder & Director, Launchpad
Andela’s internal incubator for mission-critical initiatives. Launchpad has spun off Andela’s Entrepreneurship Center and Senior Developer professional development programs.
Investors
Andela is backed by investors including;
SoftBank: is a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, and focuses on investment management. The Group primarily invests in companies operating in the technology, energy, and financial sectors. It also runs the Vision Fund, the world’s largest technology-focused venture capital fund, with over $100 billion in capital. Fund investors include sovereign wealth funds from countries in the Middle East.
Whale Rock: is an American media and technology company. Based in West Hollywood, Whale Rock partners with public figures and brands to create, build and operate direct-to-consumer multi-media apps which integrate music, video, live streaming, e-commerce, and gaming
Generation Investment Management: Generation was founded in April 2004 by a group of seven founding partners led by Al Gore and David Blood. The firm began investing client money in April 2005. Its breakthrough was integrating the disciplines of finance and sustainability. The firm places environmental and social factors at the core of its strategy
Chan Zuckerberg Initiative: is an organization established and owned by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan with an investment of 99 percent of the couple’s wealth from their Facebook shares over their lifetime
Spark Capital: is a venture capital firm in the United States, responsible for early-stage funding of technology startups
Google Ventures: is the venture capital investment arm of Alphabet Inc., that provides seed, venture, and growth-stage funding to technology companies
CRE Venture Capital: is a South African-based venture firm among one of the largest investments led by an African venture firm into an African
Funding history
In 2015 spark capital-funded Andela $10 million series A. In 2016 the chan Zuckerberg investment funded Andela with $24 million series B funding
In 2017 cre venture capital led in $40million series C funds to the company. This brought the company revenue to approximately $80million.
In 2019 generation investment management led Andelea $100million series D funding that included Serena ventures, a platform owned by Serena Williams.
In 2021 Andela announced a $200million investment from Softbank together with whalerock, generation investment management and spark capital. This was the series E financing which has a global net worth of $1.5billion.