After raising two hundred million dollars, Andela has become the latest unicorn on the African continent. Don't know Andela yet? Let's take a look at this $1.5 billion global unicorn. 

Introducing the Andela unicorn

Founded in Nigeria in 2014, Andela is a global company specializing in engineering talent outsourcing, now acquired by Jake Hoffner, CEO and co-founder of Qualified, a certification platform that verifies the skills of top engineering talent. 

Andela's main mission? Fight the global talent shortage! Thanks to its strict and rigorous recruitment process, Andela selects the best developers: on average, only 10 candidates out of 2,000 applications join the adventure for a four-year full-time contract. The skill level of these coders enables us to work with many of the world's leading technology companies, including Cloudflare, Github, KraftHeinz and Goldman Sachs.

By enabling African developers to work on projects with global stakes, Andela is helping to create jobs and develop a new generation of technology entrepreneurs in Africa: a promising future for Africa's tech ecosystem! 

Andela: facts and figures

During 2017, Andela secured $40 million in Series C funding with investments from CRE Venture Capital, Amplo, DBL Partners, TLcom Capital and Salesforce Ventures.

In January 2019, the company succeeded in raising a further $100 million in a subsequent financing round, further increasing its market valuation.

After a long journey, it was in September 2021, that Andela successfully raised $200 million in a Series E round of funding, becoming the latest and fifth African tech startup to achieve the famous unicorn status. 

Andela: key information

Andela operates as a fully decentralized organization, with over 300 employees worldwide. 

The company's sales figures were not disclosed.

Andela is not listed on the stock exchange.

It has a network of engineers, also known as "Andelans", from over 110 countries on 6 continents, to provide the best possible response to brands in need of their services.

The company aims to enable users to interact instantly with each other, while launching new value-added services such as healthcare.

"Africa has a wealth of untapped talent at a time when companies the world over are looking for skilled engineers. Andela wants to respond to the need to train this talent. Here, we find gifted people whose skills we enhance to reach the highest level", says Joshua Mwaniki, Andela's Managing Director.says Joshua Mwaniki, Andela's Country Manager for Kenya.

We're talking about them!

Sika Finance.com: Nigerian start-up Andela raises $200 million and joins the circle of African unicorns

Africa IT News.com: Andela becomes Africa's fifth unicorn