Andela announced today that the company raised a $24 million Series B round. The round was led by Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the first time that fund has led a round. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is the investment fund set up by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan.
Manhattan-based Andela operates a unique training program for African software developers. The program takes applicants through a six month training program, and then places them with American tech companies. After applicants finish the program, they become full-time employees of those companies, working remotely from an Andela-run campus in Lagos or Nairobi.
“The round represents a huge vote of confidence from some of the most respected names in technology,” Andela CEO Jeremy Johnson said in a blog post. “Not only is it a vote for Andela, but it’s also a recognition of the caliber of software developers and human beings that make up the Andela Fellowship.”
Indeed, getting into Andela’s program is not easy. Since launching two years ago, the program has seen the number of applications it receives go from 15,000 to over 40,000, yet only around 200 developers have been trained.
Andela has been responding to demand, and recently opened its second African campus in Kenya, as well as its second U.S. office in San Francisco last month.
We were lucky enough to catch up with Andela grads that were visiting the United States a couple of months ago and asked them about the program, the United States and their futures. You can find that here.
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