Andela has raised $200 million in Series E led by Softbank, with participation from new investor Whale Rock and existing investors including Generation Investment Management, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and Spark Capital.
Lydia Jett, Founding Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers will join Andela’s Board of Directors.
The development was announced today by the company CEO Jeremy Johnson.
The remote technical talent marketplace, which was started in 2014, has since changed the way it carries out its operations.
Back in 2019 and the following months, it hit a rough patch. This made the highly-valued company let go of some of its staff, including those working in Kenya.
The CEO acknowledged the different approaches that Andela had adopted to scale up.
“We began training junior developers in Lagos, Nigeria, and cities across Africa, and placing them with primarily early-stage companies in the US. In doing so, we built the foundation for Andela in an environment where we had to do far more than connect supply and demand — we had to develop trust and ensure quality and consistency across cultures and continents,” says Jeremy.
Since, the firm, which focused on developing high-potential junior talent, was forced to change its operational model.
Our early focus on developing high-potential junior talent forced us to learn at an accelerated rate, and as we expanded to more experienced talent globally, we were already well prepared — in some cases over-prepared — for the task – CEO Jeremy
Andela has onboarded engineers from more than 80 countries ever since and is serving six continents.
The funds will be used to reshape how companies find and hire the world’s best technical talent.
CEO Jeremy says that in the coming days, hiring will be ‘faster, easier, and more effective to hire globally through Andela than it is for companies to hire locally today.’
“Hiring remote technical talent is one of the top challenges that companies face today. We believe Andela will become the preferred talent partner for the world’s best companies as remote and hybrid work arrangements become the norm,” said Lydia Jett, Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers. “We are delighted to support Jeremy and the Andela team in their mission to connect these companies with brilliant engineers, and in the process, unlock human potential at scale.”
“This new round of funding enables Andela to strengthen our already extensive network of incredible talent in Africa and across the world, as we systematically connect the best software engineers with global opportunities”, says Agnes Muthoni, Director of the Andela Learning Community at Andela. “Being backed by a diverse group of renowned and experienced investors is a testament to the growing importance of remote work, and how Andela is at the forefront of helping companies scale their engineering teams at a rapid pace.”
Andela has more than 300 employees around the world.
