Talent accelerator will invest in startups founded by its graduates

folarin okunola

September 22, 2016 7:54 AM

Andela, which was founded by Iyinoluwa Aboyeji in 2014, trains novices and people new to programming.

Christina Sass, Andela COO at TechCrunch Disrupt SF

Sass gave the big reveal at the just concluded TechCrunch Disrupt SF highlighting the advantage of highlighting the advantage of helping its alumni who start companies by investing in those companies, something that could also help it boost the African technology ecosystem.

Developers who make it out of Andela's intensive program usually go on to work elsewhere, at Andela itself, and in some cases, start their own companies.

“We fully expect a subset of [Andela developers] to be launching their own companies, and we intend to help them incubate and invest in them,” Sass said.

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“The long-term goal is that, after those four years, for them to be unleashed, to really spread and lead the spread of technology across the continent.”

Since Andela is already familiar with people who go through its training, it can gauge what kind of investment is best for both the startup and itself, which means everybody goes home happy.

Andela, which was founded by Iyinoluwa Aboyeji in 2014, trains novices and people new to programming, turning them into the best developers. During the program, the developers work (sometimes remotely) with tech companies such as IBM, Microsoft and other big players on different projects, as a way of training them and getting them on the job experience at the same time.

Andela hopes to close the talent gap by investing in the smartest Africans and it has already set itself as one of the hardest programs to get into with a 0.7% acceptance rate (for context, Harvard has a 2.7% acceptance rate).

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