Andela Inc.—a New York-based startup that identifies the most talented individuals in Africa, shapes them into world-class developers, and pairs them with the world's leading tech companies—recently announced a $24 million Series B funding round led by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

This marks the first move by the initiative, a for-profit entity formed late last year by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

In the past two years, Andela has evolved from an idea into an elite engineering organization of nearly 300 people spanning three continents. Today, Andela developers are building products for Google, Facebook and IBM, as well as dozens of fast growing venture-backed startups. In their spare time, they're driving the growth of local and global tech ecosystems by building apps that are trending on Github, forming organizations to empower the next generation of female developers, and speaking at tech events across the continent.

“We live in a world where talent is evenly distributed, but opportunity is not,” said Zuckerberg in a statement explaining the investment. “Andela's mission is to close that gap.”

The WilmerHale team was led by Partner David Gammell and included Senior Associate Jeremy Delman and Associate Jared Brenner.

For more information, visit Andela's website.