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What is Andela, the Africa tech talent accelerator?
As someone who covers Africa’s tech scene, I’m frequently asked about Andela . That’s not surprising, given the venture gets more global press (arguably) than any startup in Africa.
I’ve found many Silicon Valley investors have heard of Andela but aren’t exactly sure what it does.
In a bite, Andela is Series D stage startup―backed by $180 million in VC―that trains and connects African software developers to global companies for a fee.
The revenue-focused venture is often misread as a charity. In 2017, Andela CEO Jeremy Johnson described the organization as “a mission-driven for-profit company” ― a model for the concept “that you can actually build businesses that create real impact.”
I asked Johnson recently to clarify the objective behind Andela’s drive. “It’s the exact same mission as when we started, based around our founding principle… that brilliance and talent are distributed equally around the world, but opportunity is not,” he said.
“We’re about breaking down the walls that prevent brilliance and opportunity from connecting to each other.”
A major barrier for Africa’s software engineers, according to Johnson, is simply the fact that the continent has been totally off the network that companies look to for developer talent.
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These startups are locating in SF and Africa to win in global fintech
To become a global fintech player, locate your company in San Francisco and Africa.
That’s the approach of payments company Flutterwave, digital lending startup Mines, and mobile-money venture Chipper Cash—Africa-founded ventures that maintain headquarters in San Francisco and operations in Africa to tap the best of both worlds in VC, developers, clients, and the frontier of digital finance.
This arrangement wasn’t exactly coordinated across the ventures, but TechCrunch coverage picked up the trend and some common motives among these rising fintech firms.
Founded in 2016 by Nigerians Iyinoluwa Aboyeji and Olugbenga Agboola, Flutterwave has positioned itself as a global B2B payments solutions platform for companies in Africa to pay other companies on the continent and abroad.
Clients can tap its APIs and work with Flutterwave developers to customize payments applications. Existing customers include Uber, Booking.com and African e-commerce unicorn Jumia.com.
The Y-Combinator backed company is headquartered in San Francisco, runs its operations center in Nigeria, and plans to add offices in South Africa and Cameroon.
Flutterwave opened an office in Uganda in June and raised a $10 million Series A round in October. The company also plugged into ledger activity in 2018, becoming a payment processing partner to the Ripple and Stellar blockchain networks.
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Flutterwave and Ventures Platform CEOs will join us at Startup Battlefield Africa
Startup Battlefield is returning to Africa this December. TechCrunch will be hitting Lagos, Nigeria, bringing with it our Battlefield competition and a day’s worth of panel discussions, focused on topics facing the city’s startup scene.
Iyin “E” Aboyeji
We’ve already announced a pair of speakers for the event and and are excited to add a couple more to the list, bringing with them expertise on topics like VC funding and blockchain technology.
Iyin “E” Aboyeji is the Founder and CEO of Flutterwave, a payment solution designed to transfer funds between Africa and abroad. The Lagos-based startup serves as a payment gateway for a number of high profile companies including Uber, TransferWise, booking.com and tuition platform, Flywire.
In July of this year, Flutterwave rasied a $10 million Series A led by Greycroft Partners and Green Visor Capital.
Other investors include Y Combinator, Omidyar Network, Social Capital, CRE Venture Capital and HOF Capital. Aboyeji will join us to discuss the potential of blockchain tech in Africa’s burgeoning startup scenes.
Kola Aina
Kola Aina is the CEO and founder of Ventures Platform, a Lagos-based VC firm focused on Africa. VP is among the largest accelerator/seed stage funders in the space with an eye toward solving local issues. In addition to serving as a Partner at the fund, Aina is also a mentor at World Bank Group and Google’s Launchpad Accelerator.
We’ve got plenty more speakers to announce in the coming weeks. You can grab your tickets to the event here.
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Flutterwave aims to unify Africa’s fragmented payment systems and empower small businesses
There’s no shortage of entrepreneurs in Africa, but their ambitions are often hampered by the lack in many countries of reliable and affordable digital payment systems. Moneywave wants to empower individuals and small merchants to take part in the thriving digital economy by letting them accept payment however it’s offered, and receive it instantly in whatever form they choose. Read More
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