Dunce Capital invests in idea, pre-seed, and seed stage startups in the future of learning and work.

Dunce Capital

West Quad Ventures invest in startups that aspire to be leaders in their respective category, teams we believe in with an emphasis on what’s good for the world!

West Quad Ventures

Zillow, Inc. is a leading home and real estate marketplace dedicated to helping homeowners, buyers, sellers, renters, real estate agents, mortgage professionals, landlords, and property managers find and share vital information about homes, real estate, mortgages, and home improvement. Under the Zillow brand, Zillow operates Zillow.com, Zillow Mortgage Marketplace, Zillow Mobile, Zillow Rentals, and Zillow Digs.  Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink started Zillow in early 2005, and Zillow.com launched in early 2006 with data and information on millions of U.S. homes. Zillow's goal is to help people make intelligent decisions about their homes -- whether it's buying a home, selling, renting, leasing, remodeling or financing. It's all about empowering people with information and tools to make smart decisions about homes, real estate, and mortgages.  Zillow is one of the most-visited U.S. real estate brands. Zillow Mobile boasts the most popular suite of real estate apps, with nearly 480 million homes viewed in May 2014.  In addition to information and data on nearly all homes in the U.S. (110 million and counting), Zillow visitors can search homes for sale, homes for rent, and homes not currently on the market. Homeowners can browse remodeling ideas in Dueling Digs, or dig into the latest real estate trends in their neighborhood via Zillow's expansive local data pages.  Zillow is a media business model and makes money selling targeted, relevant advertising to real estate professionals, and connecting home and mortgage shoppers with professionals who can help them.   Zillow began trading on the NASDAQ Stock Market on July 20, 2011.

Zillow

Notion is an entrepreneur-led venture capital firm that focuses on high potential businesses in the Cloud Computing and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) markets. It is an early-stage venture fund that focuses mainly on technology and cloud computing markets. The firm helps European tech companies fulfill their potential and achieve a massive scale. Notion invests early when it can build strong relationships and help to shape the future success of its companies. Notion Capital was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in London, England.

Notion Capital

FabFitFun offers subscription services that allow its members to discover brands and products. FabFitFun is a team of self-starters, working together to achieve their mission. It’s a fast-paced environment, but they always take the time to celebrate birthdays, big wins, and cheer each other on. abFitFun was founded in 2010 and is backed by tier-one investors, including New Enterprise Associates, Upfront Ventures, and Simon Venture Group.

FabFitFun

RiverPark Ventures is an active early-stage venture capital fund that focuses on investing in entrepreneurs. The company was founded in 2006 by Andy Appelbaum and Morty Schaja and is headquartered in New York, United States.

RiverPark Ventures

Thrive Market was founded in 2014 with a mission to make healthy living easy and affordable for everyone. As an online, membership-based market, we deliver the highest quality, healthy and sustainable products at member-only prices, while matching every paid membership with a free one for someone in need. Thrive Market carries over 5,000 organic and non-GMO products, and offers 70+ filters and values, allowing you to shop by diet and lifestyle. Over the last 4 years, Thrive Gives has raised over $3.5M to fund food access and environmental sustainability causes. In March 2020, Thrive Market launched a COVID-19 Relief Fund, To date, raising over $1M and supporting over 30,000 families affected by the pandemic.

Thrive Market

Suspended between the physical and digital, we desire coherence in our everyday lives. Seamless gives marketplace momentum to dynamic solutions by offering Internet of Things startups unprecedented access to the intellectual and commercial capital of international industry leaders. The mentorship and investment of our enterprise-level partners can transform an idea into a successful business. Located in Grand Rapids, Michigan—the origin of many “things” we interact with daily—Seamless brings global business resources together with the visionary expertise of startups, making way for true innovation.  Seamless Coalition: Steelcase, Amway, Faurecia, Spectrum Health, Priority Health

Seamless Accelerator

Singh Capital Partners is a private equity firm that directly invests in venture capital, real estate, and growth equity. It was established in 2018 and is headquartered in Potomac, Maryland, United States.

Singh Capital Partners

Managers — Sriram Krishnan, Cindy Bi, Jens Lapinski, Anthony Pompliano, Kat Cole, Tim Chen, Julia Lipton, Tommy Leep

Angel Collective Opportunity Fund

MarketerHire

MarketerHire’s mission is to make expert marketing accessible to everyone. Our platform gives companies on-demand access to a global network of amazing, pre-vetted marketing talent and it is used by early-stage startups, billion-dollar unicorns, and Fortune 100 companies alike. By giving all companies access to amazing marketers - entrepreneurs and enterprises can focus on building great products. We are also contributing to the future of work for our talented marketers. Our platform helps them earn significant additional income while maintaining their full-time job or taking a lot of the hassle and risk out of being full-time freelance. All of our jobs are default-remote, enabling our talent to work anywhere in the world.

MarketerHire provides a pool of pre-vetted freelancers (less than 1% admission rate) specializing in marketing, claiming top fill open positions within 48 hours. The platform’s pool of marketing freelancers comes from companies such as Yelp, Uber, and PayPal.&nbsp;

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

Online Freelancing Platforms

Connecting top marketing talent with businesses across the world MarketerHire accelerates its EMEA expansion (Sponsored)

MarketerHire provides a pool of pre-vetted freelancers (less than 1% admission rate) specializing in marketing, claiming top fill open positions within 48 hours. The platform’s pool of marketing freelancers comes from companies such as Yelp, Uber, and PayPal.&nbsp;The company generates revenue via monthly subscriptions, ranging from USD 5,000 to USD 15,000. MarketerHire also offers custom pricing for larger enterprises. MarketerHire claims that its freelancer-client collaborations have helped clients generate more than USD 1 billion in customer revenue.Key customers and partnershipsAs of October 2024, MarketerHire had over 5,000 enterprises using its platform, with notable clients including Netflix, Lyft and Perplexity.&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

MarketerHire

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