Andela, an Africa-focused outsourcing firm for software engineers, is raising a $100 million Series D led by Generation Investment Management according to a report by Bloomberg Businessweek. The round also saw participation from existing investors including Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, GV, Spark Capital, and CRE Venture Capital.
According to Bloomberg, the round will bring Andela's total funding raised to date to $180 million. Before this round, the firm had previously raised roughly $81 million from four different rounds. Their recent round of funding was a $40 million Series C - announced in October 2017 - that Johannesburg-based CRE Venture Capital led.
Over time, Andela has had a couple of notable investors take part in its fundraises including the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative which led their $24 million Series B that was announced in June 2016. Omidyar Network, GV and Salesforce Ventures are among the other notable investors.
Also read: Over a dozen African countries have reached out to us – Andela CEO
Across Africa, there haven't been many technology firms that have raised rounds of venture capital equalling to $100 million onwards. Except for Jumia Group which has raised €130 million and €360 million for their Series B and Series C respectively according to CrunchBase data. In 2014, South Africa's e-Commerce player - Takealot - also raised $100 million from Tiger Global Management before being acquired by Naspers last year.
The Generation deal would, therefore, be among the third largest venture investment ever for an African startup according to CB Insights data. The other companies that have raised significant amounts like M-Kopa - have primarily secured debt or private equity financing.
Founded in 2014 by Brice Steven Nkengsa, Christina Sass, Ian Carnevale, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, Jeremy Johnson and Nadayar Enegesi, Andela has seen rapid expansion across the continent. The firm which started from Lagos now has operations in Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda.
Andela has about 1,100 developers on staff working for more than 200 companies, nearly 90 percent of which are located in the U.S. The firm's entry into Rwanda was through a joint partnership with the Rwandan government which saw it establish a 'Pan-African Hub' that accepts software engineers from all African countries. There were also indicators for the company to expand to other parts of the continent like Egypt, but no confirmation has been made yet.
Generation Investment Management is a London-based private equity firm with former US Vice President Al Gore serves as Vice President. The firm has previously backed Silicon Valley startups like Asana and DeepMap. It also participated in M-Kopa's $19 million and $10 million rounds that it raised in 2015 and 2018 respectively. Though, much of the amount for last year's round wasn't disclosed.
Note: We received a statement from Andela which included the rest of the investors and we updated it accordingly.