Jeremy Johnson - Afrikan Heroes

Why African Edtech Firm Andela Acquired Skills Assessment Platform Qualified

March 12, 2023

In order to find, qualify, and certify elite engineers, Andela, a worldwide network for remote technical talent, has acquired Qualified, the premier technical skills testing platform. With the acquisition of more than 3.6M engineering users from Codewars, a Qualified-powered online community that allows technical talent to compete and hone their practical coding abilities in gamified challenges, Andela’s worldwide talent network will also grow.

Jeremy Johnson, founder and CEO of Andela

“With the Qualified acquisition, Andela expands and accelerates our ability to source and expertly assess talent,” said Jeremy Johnson, founder and CEO of Andela. “Labor marketplaces are constrained by inefficiencies between supply, demand and quality — Qualified allows us to address those inefficiencies by providing the certified right talent at the right time. Companies will continue to trust that talent sourced through Andela has the needed skills regardless of where they live and work.”

Jake Hoffner, the Co-founder and CEO of Qualified, added, “The tech industry has historically relied on hiring practices that have proven to be ineffective. The expanded platform will allow companies to create hiring processes for software engineers that are predictive of their on-the-job performance. In addition, we provide companies and our growing tech community a bigger, broader, and better opportunity to connect globally.”

A global talent network, Andela links businesses with approved distant technical talent in developing economies. With a 96% match success rate, the Andela platform aids businesses in scaling their engineering teams up to 70% quicker than internal recruiting. Andela is trusted by hundreds of top companies, like GitHub, Cloudflare, and ViacomCBS, to help them rapidly and affordably create better teams. Andela is supported by investors such as Generation Investment Management, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Spark Capital, and Google Ventures and has a talent network in more than 170 nations.

The best platform in the world for evaluating software developers is called qualified.io. Leading businesses like Klarna, Facebook, and Zoom benefit from the advantages of talent assessment and training at scale thanks to the developer-focused platform of Qualified.io. Qualified.io was developed by the same team that created the developer community Codewars, and it has the support of financiers including Cornerstone OnDemand, Social Capital, and Dalus Capital. Qualified.io received transactional advice from Mark Miller, Managing Partner, GHP Advisors.

Why Startup Ecosystem in Africa’s French-Speaking Countries Is The Least Funded In Africa

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard

Andela Inches towards Unicorn Status With Softbank’s $200m Investment

October 3, 2021

World’s emerging fully remote company that helps tech companies build remote engineering teams has reached a unicorn status as it is presently valued at $1.5 billion following a $200 million Series E round led by SoftBank’s Softbank Vision Fund 2, the $30 billion venture fund of SoftBank Group. Joining SoftBank in the investment was new investor Whale Rock and existing investors including Generation Investment Management, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and Spark Capital.

Andela which initially started off as an African based company has expanded beyond the shores of Africa and after closing this Series E round, it has raised a total of $381 million since being founded in Lagos, Nigeria in 2014, according to Crunchbase data. Its last valuation of $700 million came when the company raised a $100 million Series D in 2019.mayjery

As part of the investment, Lydia Jett, founding partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers, will join Andela’s board. In a written statement, Jett said that “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.”

The company began a global expansion earlier this year following a regional one last year during the pandemic. The action coincided with Andela’s fully remote policy in a bid to tap into a talent pool of over 500,000 engineers in the coming years.

Up from seven African countries and 37 at the beginning of the global expansion, Andela now has engineers in more than 80 countries today, CEO Jeremy Johnson said. It also boasts a client list of over 200 that includes GitHub, Cloudflare and ViacomCBS.

To Johnson, working with SoftBank means more acceleration of what the company is doing now, especially as the world has become more comfortable with remote work. Andela evaluates technical and soft skills of engineers and matches them with the teams that most closely fit.

“Remote is why Andela has worked in the first place,” he added. “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. We hear from SoftBank, and others, that finding tech talent is tough. Andela is pushing the easy button on all of that.”

Andela begins global expansion in 37 countries months after going remote across Africa. It has over 300 employees and will use the new capital to add to that workforce, particularly in product, engineering and growth, Johnson said. In addition, the company is investing in growth, continued expansion of technology and product development and M&A.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

SoftBank Makes More African Inroads, Leads $200m Round In Andela As It Becomes Latest African Unicorn

September 29, 2021

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.”

Softbank African startups — *Andela CEO: Jeremy Johnson. Credits: Andela*

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.

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.

“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)

African unicorns to date.

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

Africa-focused Fintech, Opay, Secures $400m From Softbank, At $2bn Valuation

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

Why Andela Expanded Beyond Africa

April 25, 2021

The Africa focused software company that is best known for connecting African developers to global clients has expanded their talent pool beyond the continent to welcome Latin and South American developers. Andela according to company sources took this step to expand its talent pool which it says is open to Africans and non-Africans in those regions. According to Andela’s CEO, Jeremy Johnson, the company “has always been part of our long term roadmap, and we’re excited that the world is ready for it.”

He describes the move as a reflection of the “future of work,” one that is remote and not restricted by geographical boundaries or a need to share physical spaces.

In July 2020, Andela closed its physical offices in Nigeria, Uganda and Rwanda to become a fully remote company. The particular rationale at the time was to increase the number of Africans who could apply to work for the company as software developers.

While the pandemic’s restriction on physical movement influenced that change in policy, there was some logic to it. Andela’s physical offices were sited only in major cities in each country they operated (Lagos, Nairobi, Kampala; their Cairo operation was remote-first from day one). Anyone who wanted to be an Andela developer had to move to these cities.

It is the expectations of the company that by going remote, a qualified developer anywhere in Africa could apply to Andela. At the time, Johnson said it opened Andela up to 500,000 potential engineers from the previous 250,000 available under a physical-office model. However, the remote logic was destined to extend naturally; if going remote opens Andela up to more African developers, it also opens them up to developers everywhere in the world.

In the past six months, Andela says it has witnessed a 750% increase in applications from qualified engineers outside of Africa. More than 30% of inbound applications in March 2021 alone were from outside of Africa; half of that 30% were from Latin America, according to the company. Latin and South American countries are Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries from Mexico on the southern border of the United States, through Colombia and Brazil to Chile and Argentina.

Andela frames this diverse base as an advantage for their clients. Companies who have people from different geographies on their engineering teams stand to get the benefit of diverse backgrounds, lived experiences and approaches to work that improve the quality of their products.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry