Hearst Ventures makes strategic investments in companies operating at the intersection of media, information, and technology.

Hearst Ventures

Orrick Venture Fund is a company that specializes in compensation and benefits solutions.

Orrick Venture Fund

Great Oaks is an early-stage venture investment firm that invests in seed and series a investments in tech-based startups. It was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in New York.

Great Oaks Venture Capital

Bridge Investments is a Chicago-based venture capital firm focused on early to mid-stage companies. We seek out talented management teams of companies with clear growth potential, apply a disciplined and analytical approach throughout the transaction and portfolio management processes, and work in collaboration with management throughout the investment horizon. We understand and have experienced the unique challenges that businesses face during their various stages of development. We have found that certain fundamental principles from mature businesses can be applied to venture-stage opportunities to more quickly achieve profitability. Conversely, the progressive and innovative qualities of venture businesses can be applied to later stage enterprises to help ignite growth. We focus on industries where we have direct experience and relationships: tech-enabled services, SaaS, and consumer/digitally native brands, among others.

Bridge Investments

Mindset Ventures is an early-stage VC firm that supports entrepreneurs in their growth and international expansion. The firm targets B2B startups technology applied to Agriculture, Financial Services, Healthcare, Cybersecurity, Education, and Enterprise Software industry. It was founded in 2016 and headquartered in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Mindset Ventures

HearstLab is an early-stage venture fund focused on women-led startups innovating across the enterprise technology, data analytics, health, fintech, transportation and media spaces. To date, HearstLab has invested in over 56 companies at the Seed and Series A stages, with four successful exits. The firm often participates as a co-investor and in follow-on rounds.  HearstLab is a venture arm of the Hearst Corporation (''Hearst'') and provides one year of services in addition to cash investments. With access to Hearst's resources across 360+ businesses, HearstLab’s breadth of services includes providing assistance with commercial deals, privacy and security, legal services, marketing support and raising capital. Portfolio companies also benefit from the strategic guidance and resource support of HearstLab Scouts, women leaders across Hearst who share their networks and expertise. HearstLab has a full-time dedicated team assisting with UI/UX, DevOps engineering, data security, data science, brand storytelling, financial modeling and business development.

HearstLab

Jambhala

Eagle Proprietary Investments is a globally diversified, private investment firm, which has a core focus on the financial industry and its supporting sectors.

Eagle Proprietary Investments

PEAK6's first tech-based solution was developed in 1997 to optimize options trading and, over the past two decades, the same formula has been used across a range of industries, asset classes, and business stages to consistently deliver superior results. Today, PEAK6 seeks transformational opportunities to provide capital and strategic support to entrepreneurs and forward-thinking businesses, helping to unlock potential and activate what is into what ought to be. PEAK6's core brands include PEAK6 Capital Management, Apex Clearing, National Flood Services, and Evil Geniuses.

Peak 6

Thirty Five Ventures is a startup founded by basketball star Kevin Durant that invests in tech companies.

Thirty Five Ventures

Investing in companies transforming the world of law

The LegalTech Fund

Soma Ventures

Thomson Reuters Ventures is an early-stage investment arm of Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters Ventures will invest primarily in earlier-stage companies via Series A and B rounds

Thomson Reuters Ventures

Priori

Priori is the global legal marketplace for in-house teams. We use data and technology to rapidly connect legal departments from 1 to 1000+ with the right outside counsel for projects globally, saving them time and money. Our clients include Fortune 500 enterprises and leading technology companies, who use our platform to find vetted boutique firms for projects requiring niche expertise, local counsel, cost-control, overflow, or temporary support. We were shortlisted in both 2018 and 2019 as a Financial Times Intelligent Business for our work reducing the cost of legal services for corporate clients by 60-80%.

Priori Legal is a legal marketplace that connects in-house legal teams with vetted attorneys, paralegals, firm administrators, and legal operations professionals. The company claims its vetted network of attorneys offer rates at least 25% below market rates. Priori's rigorous vetting process results in the acceptance of only ~20% of lawyer applicants to its network. In&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/22254">September 2023</a>, it broadened its product offerings by including legal operations professionals. This included professionals specialized in supporting legal functions, implementing legal tech solutions, and managing change within legal departments. Further, the company introduced RFP, reviews, and scorecarding features for legal teams in&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/27161">February 2024</a> to improve procurement capabilities.&nbsp;

The on-demand economy has finally reached white collar work.

Online Freelancing Platforms

Priori Expands Customer Advisory Board, Welcoming Legal Industry Leaders from Top Companies

Priori Legal is a legal marketplace that connects in-house legal teams with vetted attorneys, paralegals, firm administrators, and legal operations professionals. The company claims its vetted network of attorneys offer rates at least 25% below market rates. Priori's rigorous vetting process results in the acceptance of only ~20% of lawyer applicants to its network. In&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/22254">September 2023</a>, it broadened its product offerings by including legal operations professionals. This included professionals specialized in supporting legal functions, implementing legal tech solutions, and managing change within legal departments. Further, the company introduced RFP, reviews, and scorecarding features for legal teams in&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/27161">February 2024</a> to improve procurement capabilities.&nbsp;In addition to its freelancer marketplace, Priori offers Scout, an outside counsel panel management SaaS. Scout provides in-house legal teams with data-driven insights about their trusted law firm relationships to enable more informed hiring decisions. Additionally, the company added GenAI features to Scout in&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/25128">December 2023</a>.Priori clients pay a composite "Priori Rate" for projects, which includes legal fees plus a management fee. This applies to all fee types except expense reimbursements.Key customers and partnershipsIts notable clients include Meta, Hearst, and Verizon. As of October 2024, Priori had over 8,000 legal freelancers on its platform, covering all 50 US states.&nbsp;

Textbroker is a platform for creative writing freelancers to connect with businesses. Textbroker freelancers work on projects such as social media posts, news stories, and blog posts. The platform provides content in over 35 languages, while connecting businesses with freelancers in the target country. Platform pricing starts at USD 2.3 cents per word.Key customers and partnershipsAs of October 2024, the platform served over 80,000 clients, including eBay, Otto and RVshare. The company also had 100,000+ registered freelancers on the platform as of October 2024.

Textbroker

Procurement Freelancers provides freelancers for procurement functions such as sourcing/category management, quality control and assurance, and advisory. Its algorithm calculates the relevance between experts' skills and client briefs by scoring criteria like skills, experience, and language. It prioritizes search criteria based on user preferences to deliver the most accurate match.The platform is free to use for freelancers, while clients purchase subscriptions to hire and manage freelancers at no added cost.In March 2019, the company acquired Dragon Sourcing, a procurement and sourcing service provider.Key competitors: None under coverage. (The platform connects enterprises with procurement-based freelancers)

Procurement Freelancers

Kolabtree is a UK-based freelancer marketplace connecting businesses and scientists. The platform provides businesses with skills such as data analysis, product development, scientific consulting, desk research, and other science related services within 24 hours of receiving business requests.Kolabtree also provides concierge services for writing, with fees ranging from USD 2,000 to USD 4,000, depending on the timeline. Similarly, its concierge services for statistical analysis are priced between USD 250 and USD 625, also based on the timeline.The company generates revenue via a 20% service fee charged to the freelancers based on the total project invoice.Key customers and partnershipsAs of October 2024, Kolabtree served over 3,200 businesses including notable enterprises such as NASA, Volkswagen and Moderna. Further, the platform had over 20,000 scientists and experts as of October 2024.Key competitors:&nbsp;None under coverage. (Kolabtree offers a freelancing platform connecting enterprises with scientists).

kolabtree

Codersera is a freelance marketplace for enterprises to find software engineers. The company claims to provide the top 1% of developers through its five tier vetting process. The platform’s freelancers cover a spectrum of developer and data science technologies such as iOS, Android, Python, and Java. Additionally, freelancers provide SaaS platform development, testing and QA services and migration away from legacy systems.Key customers and partnershipsAs of October 2024, the platform had over 20,000 vetted freelancers and 100+ clients on its platform.

Codersera Inc

Upwork is an online labor marketplace that assists in engaging freelancers and businesses in discovering direct labor arrangements for both short and long-term projects. Upwork’s roots date back to 1998 and 2003 when online talent marketplaces Elance and oDesk were founded. In December 2013, Elance and oDesk announced its merger with a combined freelancer base of over 8 million (5 million from oDesk and 3 million from Elance). Subsequent to the merger, Elance-oDesk continued to report losses and required a bailout package of USD 30 million from Benchmark Capital in November 2014. The company was rebranded as Upwork in May 2015.&nbsp;Unlike Fiverr, Upwork encourages freelancers to develop a profile focused on specific expertise, helping them build a niche reputation. Fiverr, on the other hand, allows freelancers to offer a wide range of services through individual gigs, enabling them to market multiple skill sets simultaneously. In&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16664">February 2023</a> Upwork expanded its offerings to include full-time hiring for businesses with features such as finding, vetting, hiring, onboarding, and paying professionals for full-time work arrangements.&nbsp; Additionally, in&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/24502">December 2023</a>, Upwork launched Chat Pro, a GPT-4-powered app in beta, to enhance work efficiency. In&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/35568">October 2024</a>, Upwork introduced&nbsp; Uma, an AI assistant, the Business Plus plan for Expert-Vetted talent, Featured Jobs, and Boosted Profiles. At the time, the company also announced a 21% workforce&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/35569">reduction</a> aiming to save USD 60 million annually.Upwork also offers several solutions to streamline hiring: Talent Scout, connecting clients with pre-vetted freelancers; the Work Marketplace and Project Catalog for easy hiring; and the Virtual Talent Bench, which helps businesses build and maintain a network of freelancers for ongoing collaboration.The company generates revenue via a 10% project fee charged from clients, and freelancer subscriptions priced at USD 20 per month.In&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/03/upwork-ceo-on-ipo-day-we-do-not-incentivize-for-less-pay-for-freelancers.html">October 2018</a>, Upwork listed on the NASDAQ to raise approximately USD 187 million. In FY2023, Upwork generated USD 689 million in revenue (up 11% YoY). The company guided FY2024 revenue between USD 760 million to USD 780 million, representing 11.7% YoY growth at the midpoint. Diluted earnings per share (EPS) stood at USD 0.13 in FY2023, compared to a loss per share of USD 0.69 in FY2022.Key customers and partnerships&nbsp;The company recorded 868,000 active clients as of August 2024, with notable clients including Microsoft, Airbnb and NASDAQ, among others.In&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/33129">August 2024,</a> Upwork partnered with Beeline to&nbsp;integrate its talent pool into Beeline’s vendor management system (VMS), offering access to over 10,000 professionals across 125+ categories. Previously, in&nbsp;<a href="https://investors.upwork.com/news-releases/news-release-details/upwork-partners-catch-expand-freelancers-access-benefits">January 2022</a>, the company partnered with Catch to offer freelancers access to personal payroll and healthcare benefits.&nbsp;

Upwork

Platforms that provide expertise in specialized areas such as law and scientific research.

Platforms that provide expertise in writing, translation, and editing.

Platforms that provide marketing expertise across email, SEO, and social media marketing functions.

Platforms that offer expertise related to web, mobile and software development with freelance developers fluent across major programming languages.

Platforms that focus on offering expertise in design and creative functions such as photography, video editing, and animation.

Platforms that offer expertise across multiple verticals such as design and creative, web, mobile and software development, finance, and marketing.

Solutions use AI/Ml for to match freelancers with clients and to vet freelancers

Some solutions introduced by players in this hub are using a B2B SaaS model

PROMINENT_CATEGORY

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 Priori, a top legal freelancing platform, has launched new RFP, reviews, and scorecarding functions for legal teams. Users are now able to send RFPs to reliable law firms, evaluate proposals from Priori's marketplace, and monitor firm performance. An Early Access Program is available that provides these features for free for a period of six months beginning on February 15, 2024.

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Priori

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