Andela, a startup that helps engineering talent in Africa get connected with global firms, has become the newest unicorn in Nigeria after receiving $200 million from investors.
The firms latest funding round was headed by a Japanese tech investor SoftBank Group Corp., with additional participation from new investor Whale Rock and current investors, including Generation Investment Management, Spark Capital and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
As per the company, the new funding will be invested in emerging products which will help in making hiring easier.
Additionally, Andela will continue to extend its talent offering beyond software development to cover additional verticals like design and data after announcing Salesforce development earlier this year.
Reportedly, New York-based Andela is now valued at $1.5 billion. In the startup world, a firm generally gets the title of unicorn after reaching a valuation of more than a billion dollars.
This year, only two Nigerian fintech companies, namely Flutterwave and Opay, have achieved that accreditation.
For the uninitiated, Andela assists organizations in establishing remote engineering teams by connecting them with the top software developers on the planet. The Andela network, which began in Africa in 2014, now includes engineers from over 80 nations across six continents.
Thousands of engineers have been placed through Andela within top tech behemoths like Cloudflare, Github, and ViacomCBS.
Jeremy Johnson, CEO and Co-founder, Andela, says that the firm has always been the top choice for hiring remote engineering teams. As the world embraces remote working, Andela has been recognized as the ideal choice for organizations as it helps find top talent faster.
For all the talented engineers out there, Andela holds great career opportunities, no matter where they are located, claims Mr. Johnson.
With a successful hiring rate of 96%, Andela has become pronounced in identifying technical skills and soft skills of candidates for hiring them in a role where they will perform well.
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