Facebook founder pumps $24M into Andela in Series B funding

folarin okunola

June 16, 2016 1:14 PM

In just two years, Andela has trained just under 200 engineers, accepting from a pool of about 40,000 applicants and giving them six months of intensive training.

Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan.

Media reports reveal that Facebook CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg, via the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative - a fund run by the Facebook boss and his wife Priscilla Chan, is leading a $24 million Series B funding round for Andela, the global talent accelerator.

According to a Forbes report, the new fund would enable Andela train more engineers in Africa and this is the first investment made by the Initiative, which was set up by the billionaire Facebook founder and his wife, last year.

Forbes reports that venture capital firm GV, alongside SparkCapital, OmidyarNetwork, LearnCapital, and CREVentures, also joined in the funding round.

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In just two years, Andela has trained just under 200 engineers, accepting from a pool of about 40,000 applicants and giving them six months of intensive training before sending them to spend two weeks with its many technology partners. Then they are signed up to those companies and work for them full-time out of one of the two campuses Andela operates in Africa in Lagos, Nigeria and Nairobi, Kenya.

Andela CEO Jeremy Johnson says Andela isn't profitable and isn't trying to be, according to Forbes. Instead it wants to scale up its presence since its partnerships with global tech giants such as Google and Microsoft; and startups such as 6Sense and the Muse, already bring in revenue, Johnson says.

“The goal is to cultivate a next generation of founders and CTOs of great companies across Africa,” says Johnson, who was listed on the Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2012 for his startup 2U.

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