Andela Inc., one of the world’s largest marketplaces for technical talent, has acquired Woven, a technical assessment company known for its real-world engineering simulations and AI-enabled evaluation tools.
The acquisition announced on Thursday is expected to accelerate Andela’s product roadmap by integrating Woven’s assessment content, technology, and domain expertise into its platform, enabling more accurate prediction of engineers’ on-the-job performance.
Andela’s announcement makes it the third major acquisition by Nigerian startups this month following Flutterwave’s acquisition of Mono and Paystack’s acquisition of Ladder Microfinance Bank.
What the company is saying
Andela said the deal aligns with growing enterprise demand for engineers who can move beyond AI experimentation to full-scale deployment.
- According to the company, businesses increasingly require three categories of AI native engineers: builders who translate business needs into functional AI components, integrators who connect models, data, and tools into autonomous workflows, and scalers who ensure AI systems operate reliably while managing governance and risk.
- With Woven’s assessment technology, Andela said it can now precisely evaluate and match engineers across these archetypes, helping companies hire the right talent for each stage of their AI adoption journey.
“To power the AI ecosystem at scale, the world needs AI native, enterprise ready engineering talent en masse,” said Carrol Chang, CEO of Andela.
“Andela plus Woven equals the best technical assessment engine in the world to ensure AI fluency and real world job success,” Chang added.
Andela’s global marketplace currently includes more than 150,000 technology professionals.
Leadership and product integration
As part of the acquisition, Woven’s founder and CEO, Wes Winham Winler, will join Andela to lead the development of next-generation assessments designed to predict success in AI-assisted software development and AI system creation.
The company said it gains access to Woven’s extensive library of real-world engineering scenarios, AI driven scoring systems built on years of performance data, and the expertise of Woven’s founding team to accelerate its assessments roadmap.
- Barun Singh, Andela’s Chief Product and Technology Officer, said the acquisition allows the company to quickly benchmark skills across its talent network.
- He noted that Woven’s scenarios can be applied from day one to ensure clients are matched with engineers who best fit their requirements.
- Woven’s technology is built on Andela’s previously acquired Qualified platform, which focuses on assessment creation. Andela said the combination creates a unified foundation for scalable, AI powered assessments across engineering domains.
What you should know
With three acquisitions already announced in the first month of the year, 2026 appears to be the year of consolidation and expansion for Nigerian startups.
In the first week of the month, Flutterwave acquired Nigerian open banking startup Mono in an all-stock transaction valued between $25 million and $40 million.
The acquisition brings together two major fintech infrastructure players as Flutterwave looks to strengthen its payments stack with open banking, data, and identity capabilities.
A week after that, Stripe-owned Nigerian fintech, Paystack, entered Nigeria’s banking space following its acquisition of Ladder Microfinance Bank, marking a major expansion beyond payments into full-stack financial services.
In Paystack’s case, the new microfinance bank will operate independently of Paystack Payments Limited, with its own licence, governance structure, and product roadmap, while working closely with the core payments business.
