The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) has led a $24m Series B round of funding in Andela, a startup that trains tech developers in Africa.

GV, the venture capital arm of Alphabet, joined the round, alongside existing investors Spark Capital, Omidyar Network, Learn Capital and CRE Ventures.

The investment brings the startup's total funding to $39.5m.

This is the first investment by Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan since CZI's formation late last year.

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

“Companies get access to great developers, and developers in Africa get the opportunity to use their skills and support their communities. Priscilla and I believe in supporting innovative models of learning wherever they are around the world – and what Andela is doing is pretty amazing,” he added.

Andela, that is based partly in New York City, partly in Nairobi, Kenya, and partly in Lagos, Nigeria, provides companies with access to the top 1% of global tech talent.

The firm identifies high-potential developers on the African continent, shape them into world-class technical leaders, and pair them with companies as full-time, distributed team members.

From Udacity to Microsoft, companies at all stages have partnered with Andela to accelerate their product roadmaps while minimizing time spent interviewing, on-boarding, and training new hires.

Andela said it will use the funding to accelerate its growth, and plans to announce a third African country by the end of 2016.

The company plans to double its just under 200 developers trained to date over the next year.

Jeremy Johnson, co-founder and CEO of Andela, said: “Identifying and securing technical talent is a pain point for organizations all over the world, and a problem that Andela is addressing by bridging the gap between the most promising developers in Africa and the companies that need them.”

“Based on the caliber of Andela developers and the increasing acceptance of distributed teams, we have seen exponential growth over the past year and expect this pace to continue,” he added.