Andela, a global talent network startup founded in Lagos, Nigeria, in 2014 has attained unicorn status amid a $1.5-billion valuation following its latest $200-million Series-E round.
The round was led by Softbank Vision Fund-2, SoftBank Group’s $30-billion venture fund.
Jeremy Johnson co-founded the Lagos-based company to connect companies with engineering talent in emerging markets. Now fully remote, the company, whose initial focus was Africa, helps tech companies build remote engineering teams globally.
“Remote is why Andela has worked in the first place,” Johnson, the CEO of Andela, said. “In some ways, it is also a stamp of approval that top tech companies are looking for remote approaches to building engineering teams and sourcing talent.”
The company was reported to have begun a global expansion earlier this year following a greater regional push in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Andela’s fully remote policy will allow the company to tap into a talent pool of more than half a million engineers in the coming years.
Further commenting, Johnson noted that Andela now has engineers in over 80 countries worldwide, with more than 200 clients, including GitHub, Cloudflare and ViacomCBS.
Besides SoftBank, the round was joined by new investor Whale Rock and existing investors Generation Investment Management, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and Spark Capital.
Lydia Jett, a founding partner of SoftBank Investment Advisers, will join Andela’s board.
“Hiring remote technical talent is one of the top challenges that companies face today, and we believe Andela will become the preferred talent partner for the world’s best companies as remote and hybrid work arrangements become the norm,” Jett said in a statement.