Meanwhile, Zuckerberg explained why the Nigerian startup was selected as Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s first major investment on the official Facebook page.
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Andela has its base in Lagos, Nairobi and NY, with plans to open in another African country in 2017.
Mr. Zuckerberg and his wife established the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative in December a year ago when their daughter, Maxima was born.
The company, is backed by Spark Capital, Omidyar Network, Susa Ventures, Steve Case, Founder Collective, Rothenberg Ventures, Learn Capital, etc., and based in NYC, Lagos, Nairobi and San Francisco.
While Zuckerberg clearly doesn’t have a lot of free time while helming the biggest social-media company in the world connecting 1.65 billion active users, as of data from March 2016, it’s clear that fatherhood has changed his leadership for the better. “Andela’s mission is to close that gap”, Zuckerberg said in a statement. The latest fund, the company said, will be used to expand to more underprivileged countries in Africa.
The start up presently trains prospective developers in Nigeria and Kenya. “Priscilla and I believe in supporting innovative models of learning wherever they are around the world-and what Andela is doing is pretty unbelievable”.
Andela wants to unleash Africa’s pool of software engineering talent, and so too do Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan.
The startup, which has almost 200 engineers now employed by its Nigeria and Kenya offices, will use the funds to expand to a third African country by the end of 2016.
Zuckerberg, 32, will also keep his majority voting stake at Facebook, even as he transfers more shares to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
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In the past two years, Andela has evolved from a insane idea into an elite engineering organization of almost 300 people, spanning three continents.
