Globespan is the VC firm passionate about partnering with entrepreneurs as they take their companies to market. We uniquely serve these companies, helping them establish the infrastructure required to scale their offerings. We invest in startups in the IT infrastructure, SaaS, mobile, and Internet industries. With our personal market-facing expertise, strategic approach, and strong industry networks, we help companies realize their potential. Our track record with entrepreneurs has led us to become a leading venture capital firm across the globe.

Globespan Capital Partners

SV Angel is a San Francisco-based venture fund. Our experience spans from helping companies like Airbnb, Coinbase, Databricks, DoorDash, Faire, Flexport, GitHub, Notion, Pinterest, Snap, Square, and Stripe scale. Over the last 30 years of early-stage investing, our core values of trust, loyalty, and integrity along with our founder-first approach have driven our strategy. We are a service organization, investing in founders who share these values. We support entrepreneurs in building lasting companies by assisting at key inflection points and leveraging our network to help them propel their businesses forward.

Sigma Partners is a venture capital firm, founded in 1984, that has invested in over a hundred early stage companies and has over $2 billion under management.   In 2007, it raised $500 million for its most recent fund, named Sigma Partners 8.

Sigma Partners

Benchmark invests in and works alongside entrepreneurs building startups into transformational companies. They focus on early-stage venture investing in mobile, marketplaces, social, and infrastructure and enterprise software. Founded in 1995, the firm has offices in Woodside and San Francisco, California.  The firm has been recognized for its commitment to open source and is noted for creating the first equal ownership and compensation structure for its partners. The six equal general partners who take board seats and a hands-on approach to every entrepreneur and company they back, with no junior investment staff. Current general partners are Matt Cohler, Peter Fenton, Bill Gurley, Mitch Lasky, Eric Vishria, and Scott Belsky. Benchmark has had 37 exits since beginning of 2011; 14 IPOs and 23 M&As representing a total market value of more than $60 billion. Benchmark’s current portfolio of early-stage venture investments includes private market leaders such as Uber, Snapchat, Tinder, Stitch Fix, Elastic and Cyanogen; recent IPOs and acquisitions such as Twitter, Instagram, Yelp, League of Legends, Jasper, OpenTable, New Relic, Hortonworks, GrubHub, Zendesk and Zillow; and franchise companies from Juniper to eBay to Red Hat.

Benchmark

The DAG (Duff Ackerman & Goodrich) Ventures partnership began with investments in the cable TV, infrastructure, media, and wireless industries in the 1980's. The firm now invests in a variety of technology companies.

DAG Ventures

T. Rowe Price is an investment management firm dedicated to funding technology startups. The firm serves individuals, financial intermediaries, and institutions and offers a full range of investment strategies across a broad spectrum: debt, equities, and private equities. Rowe Price was founded in 1937 by Thomas Rowe Price Jr. in	Baltimore, Maryland.

T. Rowe Price

Upwork

Upwork is an online work marketplace that connects millions of businesses with independent talents around the globe. It serves everyone from one-person startups to 30% of the Fortune 100 with a powerful, trust-driven platform that enables companies and freelancers to work together in new ways that unlock their potential. Their talent community earned over $2 billion on Upwork in 2019 across more than 8,000 skills, including website and app development, creative and design, customer support, finance and accounting, consulting, and operations. Upwork’s mission is to create economic opportunities so people have better lives.

<div><p>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&rsquo;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.</p></div>

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

Online Freelancing Platforms

Fiverr.com

Toptal

Instawork

Segments

Product stage

Differentiator

Product / service

Business/revenue model

Operational presence

Focus market

Product overview

Number of freelancer signed up on the platform

Number of clients/businesses signed up on the platform

Number of projects completed

Take rate (% of freelancer earnings)

Take rate (% of invoice value from clients)

Pricing (USD)

Product link

Product launch / acquired year

Product launch / acquired description

Product metrics

Total funding

Last 12 Month Funding

Avg. time between funding rounds

Website

Year founded

Company profile

<div>
  <p>
    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&rsquo;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.
  </p>
  <p>
    In 2017, the platform reported that 20 work categories each contributed over USD 20 million in GSV, among them content marketing, business support, software development, and translation. Unlike its competitor Fiverr, Upwork encourages freelancers to offer services more closely related to one specific area of expertise. Further, Upwork allows clients to set the scope with the freelancers bidding for jobs as opposed to freelancers having the freedom to set the scope themselves. Upwork also provides freelancers access to personal payroll and healthcare benefits, in partnership with 
    <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/383867">
      <u>Catch</u>
    </a>
    , a portable benefits platform. In October 2018, Upwork was listed on the NASDAQ to raise approximately USD 187 million.&nbsp;
  </p>
  <p>
    The company introduced a new recruiting solution called Talent Scout (May 2021) to connect customers with pre-vetted freelancers selected by a panel of expert recruiters from Upwork. The service offers a more personalized solution that adds to multiple efforts by Upwork to facilitate a smooth hiring process for businesses including its Work Marketplace (launched in early May 2021) and Project Catalog (launched in November 2020). As of May 2021, Talent Scout is available to customers in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, and Israel with additional countries added throughout the year. Upwork launched the &ldquo;Virtual Talent Bench&rdquo; (October 2021), a collection of features that enables businesses to build a network of freelance talent. The release allows clients to find new talent and reconnect with them for future projects through curated freelancer lists.
  </p>
  <p>
    <b>Funding and financials</b>
    &nbsp;&nbsp;
  </p>
  <p>
    Upwork closed its offering of 0.25% convertible senior notes due 2026 for gross proceeds of USD 575 million in August 2021 while part of the proceeds is expected to be used for general corporate purposes including marketing, brand awareness and sales. Upwork has further plans to invest in working capital and M&amp;A.
  </p>
  <p>
    Upwork&rsquo;s 
    <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/8443">
      <u>FY2021</u>
    </a>
     revenue was up 34.6% YoY to USD 502.8 million, however, non-GAAP EPS remained almost flat at USD 0.06, compared to USD 0.05 in FY2020. Revenue growth was driven by a 41% YoY growth in gross services volume (GSV) to USD 3.5 billion. The overall take rate declined to 14.0% in Q4 FY2021 from 14.2% in the previous quarter and 14.6% in Q4 FY2020. This was attributed to the higher revenue growth in Marketplace revenue compared to Managed Services revenue (which has a 100% take rate) and a YoY decrease in the Marketplace take rate by 60 basis points. For FY2021, the gross margin improved by 90 basis points YoY to 73.0%, while the adjusted EBITDA margin slightly improved to 3.8% (vs. 3.7% in FY2020) and delivered a YoY growth of 36.4% YoY to USD 19.1 million.
  </p>
  <p>
    In 
    <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/11926">
      <u>July 2022</u>
    </a>
    , Upwork guided FY2022 revenue to USD 612 million&ndash;617 million, implying a 22% YoY growth at the midpoint. 
  </p>
</div>


<div>
  <p>
    Tempo is a UK-based platform connecting businesses to local freelancers. The company is currently based in London and Manchester.
  </p>
  <p>
    The company claims it can significantly lower hiring lead time and cut recruitment costs by 65%. As of February 2022, the platform has worked with 2,500+ clients in sectors such as financial services, software, and e-commerce. The platform has a pool of 80,000 candidates up for permanent and temporary roles.
  </p>
  <p>
    The platform’s most recent funding came in June 2020 when it raised its Series A extension worth USD 6.4 million led by industry incumbent  The Adecco Group. The fresh capital will be used to fuel its expansion across the UK and boost hiring from 35 to 50 team members in 2020.
  </p>
</div>


Tempo

<div>
  <p>
    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.
  </p>
  <p>
    As of October 2020, the platform served over 80,000 clients and has processed over 10 million orders. The platform's pricing starts at USD 1.5 cents per word and serves clients including Ebay and Staples.
  </p>
</div>


Textbroker

<div>
  <p>
    Procurement Freelancers provides freelancers for procurement functions such as sourcing/category management, quality control and assurance, and advisory.
  </p>
  <p>
    The platform is free to use for freelancers, while clients purchase subscriptions to hire and manage freelancers at no added cost.
  </p>
  <p>
    In March 2019, the company acquired Dragon Sourcing, a procurement and sourcing service provider.
  </p>
</div>


Procurement Freelancers

<div>
  <p>
    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.
  </p>
  <p>
    As of September 2020, the platform had a pool of over 15,000 freelancers (across 170+ countries) qualified in over 2,000 scientific disciplines. In addition, the company has worked with over 3,500 businesses over the past three years and has 8,000 active users. 
  </p>
</div>


kolabtree

<div>
  <p>
    Codersera is a freelance marketplace for businesses seeking developers. 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.
  </p>
</div>


Codersera Inc

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

Upwork

Edge Insights

Ved Sinha, Former VP of Product at Upwork, on gig marketplaces

OFP August wrap: Fiverr reins in revenue guidance; anticipates post-covid heels

OFP July Update - Adecco splashes on a historic acquisition

Company Brief

Funding

Investors

About EDGE

Contact Us

Resources

Area of Focus

Technology Research Made Effortless