Softbank, through its Softbank Vision Fund 2 has made more inroads into the African startup ecosystem. After more recently investing in African fintech startup OPay in a $400m funding round, the venture capital firm has returned to lead a $200m Series E funding round in Andela, the global network for remote engineering talent, valuing the startup at $1.5 billion. Also joining the VC in the latest round is new investor Whale Rock and existing investors including Generation Investment Management, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and Spark Capital.
“Andela has always been the high-quality option for those building remote engineering teams. Now that the world has come to embrace remote work, Andela has become the obvious choice for companies because we can find better talent, faster,” says Jeremy Johnson, CEO and co-founder of Andela. “If you are a talented engineer, Andela opens up a world of possibilities for you, no matter where you are based.”
Lydia Jett, a founding partner of SoftBank Transaction Advisers and one of the world’s most respected consumer technology investors, will join Andela’s Board of Directors as a result of this investment.
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The new funds will be used to build solutions that would make global hiring easier and engineers’ life easier. After launching Salesforce development earlier this year, Andela will also continue to expand its talent offering beyond software development to cover additional verticals such as design and data.
Why The Investors Invested
The traction Andela has generated has been massive. Andela has perfected the capacity to analyze engineers’ technical and soft talents in order to match them to the teams where they would be most successful, with a placement record of 96 percent.
Engineers from more than 80 nations on six continents are now part of the Andela network. Thousands of engineers have also been placed in leading technological firms such as Github, Cloudflare, and ViacomCBS thanks to Andela.
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“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.”
| S/N | AFRICAN UNICORNS | SECTOR | YEAR FOUNDED | YEAR BECAME A UNICORN | COUNTRY (PRIMARY MARKET) | FOUNDING TEAM MEMBERS | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jumia | Ecommerce | 2012 | 2019 | Nigeria | Jeremy Hodara and Sacha Poignonnec, ex-McKinsey consultants | ||
| 2 | Interswitch | Financial services | 2002 | 2019 | Nigeria | Mitchell Elegbe (Nigeria) | ||
| 3 | Fawry | Financial services | 2008 | 2020 | Egypt | Ashraf Sabry (Egypt) | ||
| 4 | Flutterwave | Financial services | 2016 | 2021 | Nigeria | Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, Olugbenga Agboola (Nigeria) | ||
| 5 | OPay | Financial services | 2018 | 2021 | Africa-focused of Chinese origin. | Opera | ||
| 6 | Chipper Cash | Financial services | 2018 | 2021 | Africa, with HQ in San Francisco, California, USA | Ugandan Ham Serunjogi and Ghanaian Maijid Moujaled | ||
| 7 | GO1 | E-learning | 2015 | 2021 | South Africa | South African Melvyn Lubega and Australian Andrew Barnes | ||
| 8 | Wave | Fintech | 2018 | 2021 | Senegal | Americans Drew Durbin and Lincoln Quirk | ||
| 9 | Andela | Recruitment | 2014 | 2021 | Kenya; Nigeria; Africa | Brice Steven Nkengsa (Kenya), Christina Sass (US), Ian Carnevale (Canada), Iyinoluwa Aboyeji (Nigeria), Jeremy Johnson (US), Nadayar Enegesi (Nigeria) | ||
A Look At What Andela Does
Andela, which began operations in Africa in 2014, assists firms in forming remote engineering teams by connecting them with the greatest software developers on the planet. Andela, a 100% remote company with over 300 people worldwide, is backed by investors such as Generation Investment Management, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Spark Capital, and Google Ventures, and is a distributed organization spanning six continents.
Softbank African startups Softbank African startups
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer