Crosslink, founded in 1989, is a premier early-stage venture capital firm with over $1.3B in assets.  Crosslink partners with founders that are market disrupters and category creators, typically at the Seed-Series A stage, across highly dynamic enterprise and consumer technology sectors. Over its history, Crosslink has had the opportunity to partner with defining companies such as Bleacher Report (acquired by TWX), BuildingConnected (acquired by ADSK), Chime, Coupa (COUP), DataStax, Molekule, Omniture (acquired by ADBE), Personal Capital (acquired by Empower Retirement), Postmates (acquired by UBER), ServiceMax (acquired by GE), Verodin (acquired by FEYE), Vungle (acquired by Blackstone) and Weave.

Crosslink Capital

Redpoint has partnered with visionary founders to create new markets and redefine existing ones since 1999. The firm invests in startups across seed, early, and growth phases. In total, Redpoint manages $4 billion across multiple funds.

Redpoint

Ooga Labs is a venture capital firm that offers investment and advisory services to network and marketplace businesses. It offers expertise in growth, consultancy, and investment services. It was founded in 2007 by Stan Chudnovsky and James Currier and is based in California.

Ooga Labs

Flight Ventures is the first fund that was built by leveraging AngelList syndicates. They operate some of the top syndicates on AngelList, as well as the Flight Ventures Expansion fund (offline). Flight Ventures includes 25 partners with exceptional operational and entrepreneurial accolades, all whom actively engage with our portfolio companies.

Flight Ventures

Storm Ventures is a $600m (TAM) VC firm 100% focused solely on early-stage enterprise investments.  We've been founders ourselves, of enterprise companies including Airespace (acquired by Cisco) and EchoSign (acquired by Adobe).  We've had to go without pay as CEOs ourselves to make payroll.  We've gone from $0 to $100m in ARR and lived all the stages in between.  We've here to help, and add some strategic capital and insights.  And not be in the way when we're not needed.

Storm Ventures

Scripted.com

Scripted provides original written content for small and large businesses. Order anything from tweets to white papers, and everything in between.

Scripted is a content creation platform that provides businesses with access to a network of professional writers for creating SEO-friendly content. Specific content solutions offered include blog posts, articles, web page content, product descriptions, social media content, ebooks, and whitepapers.

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Scripted

Scripted is a content creation platform that provides businesses with access to a network of professional writers for creating SEO-friendly content. Specific content solutions offered include blog posts, articles, web page content, product descriptions, social media content, ebooks, and whitepapers.Scripted combines AI with human subject matter experts to deliver scalable content creation services. The platform's AI-powered tools assist with content ideation, research, and optimization, while experienced writers bring their expertise to craft engaging and industry-specific content.The company offers freemium pricing plans, with paid plans ranging from USD 199 to USD 499, alongside custom pricing for larger enterprises. Its free pricing tier consists of only AI-generated content.Key customers and partnershipsAs of September 2024, Scripted had over 4,000 customers using its platform. Notable enterprise customers included Adobe, Adidas, and IBM.

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

Scripted

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