What Andela does

Andela, Inc. is a privately held, New York-headquartered technology services company founded in 2014 that provides AI engineering talent and AI systems delivery to large enterprises. The company operates a two-sided platform that connects certified AI-native engineers with enterprise clients, while also offering end-to-end AI solutions and corporate upskilling programs. Since a 2021 strategic pivot from a generalist talent marketplace, Andela has repositioned itself as 'the human compute layer powering production AI,' organizing its offerings into three pillars: Train & Build AI systems (data readiness, model alignment, enterprise RAG, production deployment), Deploy AI-native engineers (Builders, Integrators, Scalers tiers), and Upskill workforce (LLM engineering, agentic AI, AI in production, AI leadership training).

The platform curates a pool of 17,000+ certified AI-native engineers and 200,000+ trained technologists since inception, sourced globally across North America, EMEA, Latin America, Asia Pacific, and Sub-Saharan Africa with timezone-overlap matching. Underlying technology includes a talent matching platform (client.andela.com / talent.andela.com), a continuous learning framework with assess-learn-validate-repeat methodology, the Andela Pay payroll service, the AI Academy training platform, and a Shift+Tab publication with 90,964 subscribers. Core technology partnerships with Google, NVIDIA, Microsoft Azure, AWS, Meta, and Kubernetes are integrated into the certification curriculum.

Andela monetizes through three revenue streams: Talent Placement/Staffing (managed services for individual augmentations or fully-managed teams), Training as a Service (subscription-style upskilling programs), and AI Solutions Services (professional services covering data readiness, model alignment/RLHF, enterprise RAG, and production AI deployment). Pricing is quote-based with multi-year enterprise contracts and a discovery-call-led field sales motion. The customer base includes Goldman Sachs, GitHub, Capital One, SoFi, Johnson & Johnson, Indeed, Coursera, WPP, The Weather Company, Gopuff, Lattice, Resy, and ISG across Financial Services, Technology, Healthcare, Media, Education, Advertising, Consumer, and Hospitality verticals. The company maintains GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA-aligned privacy practices, holds a 4.7/5 G2 rating across 329 reviews, and reports 98% enterprise client satisfaction.

Name

Andela

Legal name

Andela Inc.

Website

https://andela.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2014

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

251–500 employees

Short description

Andela is a privately held AI engineering services firm founded in 2014 that connects enterprises with a global pool of 17,000+ certified AI-native engineers, delivers end-to-end AI system development, and upskills corporate workforces, serving large enterprise clients across financial services, technology, healthcare, and other verticals.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

AI Engineering Services & Talent Marketplace

NAICS

Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151), Computer Systems Design Services (541512), Computer Training (611420)

SIC

Services-Computer Programming Services (7371), Services-Computer Integrated Systems Design (7373), Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)

akta.pro primary industry

AI/ML Engineering & Model Development Services (BPAEAHAF)

akta.pro secondary industries

Data, Analytics & AI Training (BI, Data Engineering, ML/GenAI) (BPAEANAH), End-to-End Enterprise AI Platforms (MLOps & Model Lifecycle Management) (HDAEANAA)

Keywords

• AI engineering talent
• AI workforce training
• Talent matching platform
• Enterprise AI services
• AI production deployment

Headquarters

HQ city

New York

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Talent Placement / Staffing: Placement of certified AI-native engineers into client organizations. Engineers are deployed either as individual augmentations or as fully-managed teams for enterprise AI projects.
2. Training as a Service (TaaS): Upskilling programs for enterprise engineering teams covering LLM engineering, Agentic AI systems, AI in production, and AI strategy and leadership.
3. AI Solutions Services: End-to-end AI system development services including Data Readiness for AI, AI Model Alignment (fine-tuning, RLHF), Enterprise AI Retrieval (RAG), and AI in Production deployment.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Andela provides a human compute layer behind modern AI systems, training AI models and deploying AI-native engineers into enterprise production environments. The company operates a global talent platform with 17,000+ certified AI engineers and offers AI workforce upskilling programs. Services span AI data readiness, model alignment (RLHF), enterprise RAG systems, agentic AI deployment, and managed AI engineering teams (Builders, Integrators, Scalers).

Product overview

Andela provides a human compute layer behind modern AI systems through three interconnected service pillars: (1) Train & Build AI systems including Data Readiness for AI, AI Model Alignment, Enterprise AI Retrieval, and AI in Production; (2) Hire AI-native engineers across three tiers - Builders (AI Application Engineering), Integrators (AI Systems Engineering), and Scalers (AI Platform & Production Engineering); and (3) Upskill teams via training programs covering LLM Engineering, Agentic AI, AI in Production, and AI Leadership. Supporting services include AI Academy for talent career development, Andela Pay for payroll management, and the Shift+Tab Publication for industry insights. The company connects enterprises with certified AI engineers and provides ongoing workforce training to enable AI transformation.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Andela AI Academy: AI mastery training program for talent to level up their careers.
• Andela Pay
• Shift+Tab

Products and services

• Data Readiness for AI AI data preparation service for enterprises covering ingestion, annotation, and governance to ensure high-quality training data for AI systems. Customers are enterprises seeking to train AI models with curated, production-grade datasets.
• AI Model Alignment Model fine-tuning and optimization service including RLHF (Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback) to align AI models with enterprise requirements. Targeted at enterprises deploying production AI systems.
• Enterprise AI Retrieval RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) and AI knowledge governance service for unlocking and managing enterprise knowledge for AI systems. Customers are enterprises needing to operationalize proprietary knowledge through AI.
• AI in Production Agentic AI deployment and AI system deployment into production workflows, enabling enterprises to operationalize AI at scale. Targeted at enterprises moving AI from pilot to production.
• Builders (AI Application Engineering) AI application engineering service providing certified engineers who build AI-native applications and drive NLP, MLOps, and LLMOps innovation. Customers are enterprises augmenting engineering teams.
• Integrators (AI Systems Engineering) AI systems and infrastructure engineering service providing certified engineers who build AI-native cloud platforms and integrate ML/GenAI models into production. Targeted at enterprises integrating AI systems into their stack.
• Scalers (AI Platform & Production Engineering) AI platform and production engineering service providing certified engineers who deploy and scale AI systems, manage LLMOps, observability, and CI/CD pipelines. Customers are enterprises scaling AI in production.
• AI Curriculum and Training Programs Training-as-a-Service (TaaS) covering LLM engineering (RAG, fine-tuning), Agentic AI architecture, AI in Production (LLMOps, observability, CI/CD), and AI strategy and leadership. Customers are enterprises seeking to upskill existing engineering workforces.
• AI Academy Career development platform enabling technologists to achieve AI mastery and level up their careers through structured learning paths. Customers are individual engineers and developers joining the Andela talent community.
• Andela Pay Payroll tracking and management service for tracking and managing talent payouts across the Andela network. Customers include both talent (for receiving compensation) and clients (for managing engagements).
• Blended Teams (Managed AI Engineering) Fully-managed AI engineering team deployment combining Builders, Integrators, and Scalers into blended global teams matched by timezone for enterprise production AI systems. Customers are enterprises undertaking large-scale AI transformations.

Quantifiable outcome

• 3x reduction in resolution times for GitHub's 100K ticket backlog
• +4 more outcomes

Named customers13 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability8 records

Feature3 records

Partnerships

Seven partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• GooglecoreTechnology or IntegrationLearning Partnership: Andela engineers are continuously trained on Google platforms powering modern AI. Engineers receive training and certification on Google Cloud AI/ML technologies.
• NVIDIAcoreTechnology or IntegrationLearning Partnership: Andela engineers trained on NVIDIA platforms including GPU computing and AI/ML infrastructure. NVIDIA technologies integrated into AI training curriculum.
• KubernetescoreTechnology or IntegrationLearning Partnership: Andela curriculum includes Kubernetes training for AI platform and production engineering. Engineers assessed on container orchestration competencies.
• AWS (Amazon Web Services)coreTechnology or IntegrationLearning Partnership: AWS included in Andela's AI training curriculum. Engineers trained on AWS AI/ML services and cloud architecture for AI production deployment.
• Microsoft AzurecoreTechnology or IntegrationLearning Partnership: Microsoft Azure platform integrated into Andela's AI engineering curriculum. Engineers trained on Azure AI services and cloud deployment.
• MetacoreTechnology or IntegrationLearning Partnership: Meta technologies (including AI/ML frameworks) included in Andela's training curriculum for AI engineers.
• Data Protection Representative Limited (DataRep)minorImplementation/ SI/ Consulting PartnerEU and UK data protection representative for GDPR compliance. DataRep serves as Andela's EU Member Representative (Dublin, Ireland) and UK Member Representative (London, UK) for GDPR data subject rights.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Emerging players

• Appen: Appen provides data annotation and AI training data services to enterprises building ML systems. It is comparable to Andela's Data Readiness for AI offering and serves similar enterprise buyers in regulated industries.
• DataRobot: DataRobot provides an enterprise AI platform alongside AI implementation services. While more product-focused than Andela, it competes for AI deployment and production engineering budgets at large enterprises.
• Scale AI: Scale AI provides data labeling, RLHF, and model evaluation services to AI developers and enterprises. It overlaps with Andela's Data Readiness for AI and AI Model Alignment offerings, targeting similar buyers building production AI systems.

Broad incumbents

• Accenture: Accenture is a global IT services leader with a large AI practice and deep enterprise relationships. It competes with Andela on AI engineering services and transformation engagements, though at much larger scale and with a broader service portfolio.
• Infosys: Infosys is a global IT services firm with an expanding AI services practice. It competes with Andela on enterprise AI transformation engagements and benefits from a large global delivery infrastructure.
• Capgemini: Capgemini is a global IT services and consulting firm with a strong AI and data engineering practice. It competes with Andela on enterprise AI engineering and transformation projects, with comparable global delivery capabilities.
• Cognizant: Cognizant is a major IT services provider with an expanding AI and data engineering practice. It competes with Andela on enterprise AI engineering services and benefits from established enterprise contracts and global delivery centers.

Direct peers

• Toptal: Toptal is a global freelance talent platform that places vetted engineers, including AI/ML specialists, with enterprise clients. It is the most direct competitor to Andela's talent placement business and shares the upmarket positioning and rigorous vetting model.
• Upwork: Upwork is a broad freelance marketplace with a significant AI/ML talent category. While it serves a wider range of buyers and price points than Andela, it overlaps on the underlying model of connecting enterprises with on-demand engineering talent.
• Turing: Turing is an AI-focused talent platform that matches vetted remote engineers with US-based companies. It directly competes with Andela in AI engineer placement and has overlapping target customers in the enterprise AI transformation segment.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/andela
• Facebookfacebook.com/thisisandela
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/andela

Compliance3 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds9 records

Investors39 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A4 records

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Andela