How Four Nigerians In BQ Started Andela — Iyinoluwa Aboyeji

A co-founder of Andela, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, has revealed that the company which has grown to become a unicorn started with four people in a boys quarters.

Aboyeji, who spoke on Monday at this year’s edition of the The Platform, organised by Lagos-based church, Covenant Nation, to mark the 2023 Worker’s Day, said the company moved to seven places in the space of two years because of lack of resources.

“In 2014, we raised 28 million and that was the year that we started Andela, we were moving. We started in a BQ (boys quarters) on Cameron road, we started with 27 (people), then we whittled down, I think we ended up with four after the selection process.

“Four of us, the Andela that you see everywhere today, four people started it a BQ. Before that time we were sharing space in CChub. At one point we did not have the resources, we went to Fadeyi, we were in Fadeyi for a while and we kept moving around like that.

“Just so this is where we are coming from, when you hear people raised billions of dollars, unicorn started from corn,” Aboyeji said.

Andela, a global job placement network for software developers, was co-founded in 2014 by Iyinoluwa Aboyeji and a few other entrepreneurs. The company is currently valued at over $1.5bn.