Andela operates a fully remote engineering talent marketplace that evaluates technical and soft skills and matches engineers with employer teams. Founded in Lagos, Nigeria in 2014 as an Africa-focused talent accelerator, it has expanded globally and now has engineers in more than 80 countries and a client roster of over 200, including GitHub, Cloudflare and ViacomCBS. The company employs over 300 people, reports a 96% placement success rate, and says engineers placed through its platform see an average 64% income increase. Andela reported a $50 million annual revenue run rate in 2019 and has said revenue is now "so meaningfully higher than that." The company is investing in new verticals (including design, data and Salesforce), expanding its digital product suite, moving into AI, and plans to use capital for hiring across product, engineering and growth as well as M&A. Andela has faced operational and legal challenges, including layoffs after a 2019 pivot and a lawsuit from freelancer marketplace Toptal alleging theft of trade secrets. Andela sources and vets software developer talent from across Africa, running a six-month training bootcamp before placing developers with customers as remote, full-time employees. Since founding in 2014, the company has operated coding campuses in Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. It has attracted more than 130,000 applicants for roughly 1,100 developer slots. After onboarding and training, developers are embedded with Andela customers to work remotely as full-time staff. The company recently netted $100 million, reflecting a significant capital infusion reported in coverage of its model. The organization’s core product is this end-to-end talent sourcing, training and placement service for tech employers. Andela recruits and trains software developers in Africa and places them with global tech firms. The company operates campuses in Lagos, Nairobi, and Kampala that provide technical and professional skills development, leadership training, mentorship, laptops, subsidized housing, and meals. It invests roughly $15,000 per developer during an initial six-month training period, during which trainees receive a minimal salary; after promotion to client work, salaries rise to competitive local levels (around $2,500/month in Lagos and $3,000/month in Nairobi). To date Andela has hired 500 developers from an applicant pool of more than 70,000. The firm serves clients including Mastercard Labs, Viacom, GitHub, and Gusto. Andela emphasizes partnerships (Google, Pluralsight) and an open-sourced curriculum as part of its mission-driven, for-profit model. The company plans aggressive expansion using new funding, including launching two additional offices in other African countries. Andela identifies high‑potential developers on the African continent, conducts courses to grow their skills, and pairs them with companies as full‑time distributed team members. Led by CEO and co‑founder Jeremy Johnson, its developers already build products for Google, Facebook and IBM as well as dozens of venture‑backed startups. The company is based in New York City, Lagos, Nairobi and San Francisco. On June 16, 2016 Andela raised $24M in a Series B round led by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative with participation from GV (formerly Google Ventures). The company said it will use the funds to continue to expand operations. Andela is backed by earlier investors including Spark Capital, Omidyar Network, Susa Ventures, Steve Case, Founder Collective, Rothenberg Ventures and Learn Capital. Andela runs an intensive multi-year training program that combines technical and business courses and places fellows as full-time developers with U.S. tech teams after six months. Fellows are paid wages that place them in the top 5% of Nigerian income earners. The program has received over 15,000 applications and maintains an acceptance rate of roughly 0.5%, with an average class size of about ten new students per month. Andela has placed dozens of developers with companies ranging from Microsoft to Udacity, and 80% of clients have asked about bringing on more developers within the first six months. The company launched in Lagos less than a year before the article and is beginning expansion into Kenya. Its stated mission is to train 100,000 world-class developers across the African continent within ten years.

Total raised

$364M

Funding rounds

6

Latest round

Series E

Latest activity

Sep 2021