He is a king. Tuenti which he co-founded was sold for $100 million to  Telefonica. Workday acquired Identified which he co-founded. As Vice President of Tech & Strategy, he ran Workday predictive analytics and data science. His Base10 Partners just raised $250 million. Base10 Partners becomes the World’s largest black-led venture capital firm. Adeyemi Ajao is building a new world in the minority venture capital world.

The world’s largest Black-led venture capital firm, Base10 Partners, just got bigger, raising $250 million to invest in startups and back a handful of initiatives designed to diversify the mostly-White industry.

The San Francisco-based firm plans to announce its second fund Friday at nearly twice the size of its previous one. Base10 also pledged to immediately and permanently donate 1% of management fees and 1% of the firm’s future profits to organizations focused on increasing racial justice and representation in tech.

Adeyemi Ajao, co-founder and managing partner of Base10, said the equality movement sparked by the death of George Floyd demanded an urgent response. While the contribution is relatively modest, Ajao said he’s hoping if others join the effort, it could be significant over time. Base10 estimates the venture industry could collectively contribute more than $200 million annually toward the cause.

“Konga Should Sell to Jumia ” and “The Andela Problem” are two articles I am not happy that I made public. Specifically on the Andela one, an investor in the company wrote to me, and commended my ability to understand the business, from far. The Konga one was a meltdown as many on LinkedIn felt I was demoralizing people. Sure, within days I wrote the article, Konga sold itself. The premise of that piece was based on a press release from Konga.

Practically, what it said it was going to pivot made no sense for a company that had around $100 million of investors money. It would have made sense if Konga had raised about $20 million. So, I simply said: if that was the only thing available in the playbook, sell because you have no future!

In the Andela piece, I wrote, “The business cannot scale outside the blue, because the revenue is the developer, and you cannot mass produce them. There is a space constraint on how many you can have in the offices. Sure – you have more offices, but that also increases cost. For the very fact that these workers remain with Andela, and not leaving, it will quickly run into carry-capacity.”

But today, Andela is going completely remote which means its carry-capacity problem is eliminated. For that, I will write that Andela has completely evolved. Now, all it needs is to find demand for its services.

Software talent outsourcing company, Andela, has  said that it has shut down all its offices and now operates remotely. The remote work idea has been on the pipeline for the company for a long time, but COVID-19 hastened its implementation.

Andela spokesperson said working remotely will help the company to fine-tune the talents in its disposal and serve its customers better.

“The reason behind this decision was that we found that our physical offices at times constrained our ability to connect talent with opportunities. By going fully remote, it opens our access to talent with diverse experiences and skill sets to support our current and future customers.”

Andela CEO Jeremy Johnson said last month the plan is materializing as the company had tested the effectiveness and ascertained that the remote work model will serve it better.

“We’ve now proven that we can operate fully remote by delivering excellent work to our customers over the past couple of months. We will continue to ensure that our engineers have the infrastructure needed to operate at a world-class level,” he said on Medium in May.

Of course, as you might have noticed, I do not write analytical articles anymore. I try to make people happy by celebrating fundraise, happy-hours, etc. Those insightful articles that look at business models are gone from the public. I do not want people to lose confidence in themselves.

Congratulations Andela.

Andela Goes Completely Remote

He connected with me on WhatsApp a few minutes ago when I was watching the video of his session. I quickly sent him a screenshot. In a very calm and professional delivery (yes, a salesman he is), he planned the future, financially.  He is an accounting graduate of the University of Benin. He earned an MBA from ATBU Bauchi. 

Okpaise Kenneth, a Financial Advisory Planner with insurance giant, AIICO Insurance Plc, will lead a session on Effective Financial Planning & Management. His excellence in service has earned him a valuable Team Lead and Financial Advisor with AIICO INSURANCE in Lagos Nigeria.

This session is part of our personal development which is a very critical part of Tekedia Mini-MBA. We are very confident our members will appreciate learning from experts on how to predict that future by creating the one we want.

We welcome you to Tekedia Mini-MBA.