Andela, a startup that trains coders in Africa, announced today that it has raised $40 million in a late-stage financing.

The Series C round was led by CRE, a venture capital firm dedicated to “building category-defining tech companies in Africa,” and it also included participation by other investors, including Salesforce Ventures, TLcom, DBL and Amplo.

According to Andela, this is one of the largest funding rounds ever for an African company, and it brings the startup’s total financing to date to more than $80 million.

Founded in 2014, Andela has grown from teaching a small class of six people in Lagos, Nigeria, to teaching more than 800 coders in several countries throughout Africa. The company prides itself on being highly selective, claiming that out of more than 70,000 applicants, it has accepted only the top 0.7 percent into its program. Andela says that many of its students have gone on to work for major tech firms in Africa, and the startup believes that Africa will continue to become an increasingly important location for the tech industry.

“When we first started Andela, even those who loved and believed in us thought it was a bit crazy,” the Andela team said in a blog post. “But with every partnership, we’re proving to the world that brilliance is evenly distributed and has nothing to do with nationality or gender. Soon, the demographic challenges that many associate with Africa will instead become an advantage.”

The team also expressed that as African technologists increasingly lead companies solving “some of the world’s most pressing challenges,” they will reverse “age-old misconceptions about talent and potential.”

As part of the new funding deal, CRE founding partner Pule Taukobong will be joining Andela’s board, which already includes members from Spark Capital and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a philanthropic organization created by Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

“At present, there is more capital to fund ideas globally than there are people to build them,” Taukobong said in a statement. “Andela is providing a solution to this global talent dilemma while building a business case for one of Africa’s greatest assets: our people.”

Photo: Andela