Tech firm Andela, which matches software developers from Africa and other emerging markets with global clients, has won unicorn status after raising $200m in a Series E funding round led by Japan’s Softbank Group. valuing the company at $1.5 billion.
Softbank Vision Fund 2 led the round with participation from new investor Whale Rock and existing investors including Generation Investment Management, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and Spark Capital.
Founding Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers and one of the most respected consumer technology investors in the world, Lydia Jett, will join Andela’s Board of Directors.
Launched in Africa in 2014, the Andela network today represents engineers from more than 80 countries and six continents. Andela helps companies build remote engineering teams by providing them with access to the best software engineers in the world.
Through Andela, thousands of engineers have been placed with leading technology companies including Github, Cloudflare and ViacomCBS. Speaking on the investment deal, the CEO and co-Founder of Andela, Jeremy Johnson, said: “Andela has always been the high-quality option for those building remote engineering teams.
Now that the world has come to embrace remote work, Andela has become the obvious choice for companies because we can find better talent, faster. “If you are a talented engineer, Andela opens up a world of possibilities for you, no matter where you are based.”
The latest funding allows the company to invest further in its AI software which the company says makes hiring quicker and easier by providing millions of data points to guide companies on where an individual would be most successful. When the pandemic struck, hiring freezes left the Andela in limbo, but as companies came to the realisation that they had to turn to remote working,
Andela and others capitalised, Johnson says. “The world is not moving back into an office based environment anytime soon.. and new hires want that level of flexibility. What we’ve seen is the trend over the next ten years for remote work has been compressed into the past 18 months,” said CEO, Jeremy Johnson.
African venture capitalist and early investor in Andela and Flutterwave Idris Ayodeji Bello, said the company has transformed Africa’s tech ecosystem by creating an ‘Andela mafia’ – a group of former employees and founders whose companies, just like the ‘PayPal Mafia’ and ‘Careem Cartel’, went on to be some of the most influential entrepreneurs and investors in Silicon Valley.
