Andela began in Lagos a decade ago with a bold, straightforward proposition: if the world’s most pressing engineering problems could be solved from anywhere, then brilliant technologists in Africa deserved a seat at the global table. Today the company is headquartered in New York, commands a fully distributed workforce, and operates an AI-driven marketplace that matches more than 150,000 pre-qualified software engineers from 135 countries with the hiring needs of Fortune 500 corporations and high-growth scale-ups alike. Its journey from a training-focused fellowship to a $1.5 billion Talent-as-a-Service platform offers a window into how venture capital and visionary leadership are reshaping the future of work on the African continent.
From Fellowship to Global Marketplace
Founded in 2014 by Jeremy Johnson, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, Nadayar Enegesi, Brice Nkengsa, Ian Carnevale, and Christina Sass, Andela’s first act focused on grooming junior developers in Nigeria and Kenya through an intensive in-house fellowship. The model evolved quickly. By 2019, the company pivoted toward mid- and senior-level talent, responding to enterprise demand for engineers who could contribute from day one. When the pandemic accelerated remote work, Andela went all-in on a location-agnostic strategy, expanding its community to Latin America and other emerging markets while keeping roughly 60 percent of its talent base in Africa and Latin America. That geographic breadth now allows clients such as GitHub, Goldman Sachs, ViacomCBS, Coursera, and Cloudflare to staff projects around the clock and across time zones.
AI-Powered Talent Cloud Accelerates Hiring
Central to Andela’s value proposition is the proprietary Andela Talent Cloud, a platform that applies machine-learning algorithms to every step of the hiring lifecycle. Companies submit role requirements; the system then searches its pool for candidates who have already passed rigorous technical assessments, coding challenges, and English-language tests. According to internal metrics, the approach slashes time-to-hire by up to 66 percent and shortens project delivery timelines by roughly a third compared with traditional recruitment. Beyond matching, the platform handles compliance, payroll, and ongoing performance monitoring in more than 100 countries, generating reported cost savings of up to $80,000 per hire.
Backed by Deep-Pocketed Investors
Andela’s ability to scale has been fueled by over $350 million in venture funding, culminating in a $200 million Series E round in September 2021 that catapulted the company to unicorn status. SoftBank Vision Fund joined existing backers—including Whale Rock Capital Management, Generation Investment Management, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Spark Capital, Google Ventures, and TLcom—demonstrating sustained investor confidence in the growing talent-as-a-service category. The roster also counts high-profile supporters such as Serena Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, and Steve Case’s Revolution fund, underscoring Andela’s appeal across both impact-oriented and returns-driven capital pools.
New Leadership Charts the Next Chapter
September 2024 marked another inflection point with the appointment of Carrol Chang as chief executive. A Harvard-trained strategist with a JD-MBA from Northwestern, Chang previously oversaw Uber’s global driver and courier operations, experience that aligns neatly with Andela’s marketplace dynamics. She is joined on the executive bench by Courtney Machi, vice-president of product and engineering and a veteran of Toptal and Anaplan; Lila Millsap, vice-president of people and an advocate for remote-first culture building; and Erin Lothson, whose legal background at Dandy, Uber Freight, and Groupon positions Andela to navigate the regulatory nuances of cross-border work. Early in Chang’s tenure the company unveiled a strategic partnership with Emergence AI to upskill engineers for agentic AI systems and launched Andela AOR, a compliance and payments solution that eases talent engagement in more than 100 jurisdictions.
From its roots in Nigeria to its current perch as a New York-based unicorn, Andela has stitched together a cross-continental talent network that challenges long-held assumptions about where world-class engineering resides. A blend of mission-driven ethos and data-driven execution—backed by some of the deepest pockets in global venture capital—has enabled the firm to become a bellwether for Africa’s ascendant tech ecosystem. As companies race to secure scarce AI and cloud expertise, Andela’s combination of rigorous vetting, AI-enabled matching and expanding product suite positions it to remain a pivotal conduit between emerging-market brilliance and worldwide opportunity.