Fiverr Raises $30 Million to Fuel Global Growth

As the world's largest marketplace for creative and professional services, Fiverr(R) is pleased to announce today Series C funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, Accel Partners, Qumra Capital and additional private investors for $30M, accelerating a large scale shift toward a new workplace where independent workers and businesses can connect on a global scale.

As the global economy continues to evolve -- with freelancers playing a more vital role every year -- one company is poised to capitalize on this area of tremendous growth.

"By 2020 the number of independent workers is predicted to double, with online freelancing increasing at an even faster rate," says Fiverr Co-Founder and CEO Micha Kaufman. "The landscape of opportunity far exceeds the current playing field. This funding is an affirmation of the brand resonance and trust we have established in this multi-billion dollar market of opportunity."

Services-as-a-Product - Introducing Fiverr 3.0

The first generation of freelancing sites was based on the traditional staffing model, centering on recruiting and outsourcing. Fiverr takes a unique approach by providing an "e-commerce experience" that empowers creative people to package their skills as products -- enabling the buying and selling of services in just a few clicks -- and eliminating any negotiation friction. This pioneering model effectively offers "Services-as-a-Product," or SaaP.

"One of the many reasons Fiverr is so exciting is that it is the only service-based marketplace modeled on e-commerce platforms," says Adam Fisher, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. "Like eBay and Amazon, customers simply browse, search, and buy, selecting from more than 100 categories and millions of services. It's as easy as buying a book online. Why hire someone to do something that is done thousands of times a day for a pricey sum and an unknown delivery date when you can order for next day delivery on Fiverr?"

"We started introducing services for more than $5 two years ago and today the majority of our revenue is from orders well above $5," said Michiel Kotting, Partner at Accel Partners. "Fiverr continues to be the world's #1 global marketplace with an order being placed every 4.7 seconds. Few marketplaces can match Fiverr's product depth and liquidity."

Beginning today, with 10 categories, and rolling out across all categories in coming weeks, Fiverr 3.0 allows buyers to customize their search to suit their very particular needs. For example, if a small business wanted to purchase a voiceover for a new product launch video, it allows the buyer to search and sort by highly specific criteria such as whether the seller is top-rated along with gender, accent and region.

Through Fiverr's highly regarded community rating system, buyers have complete confidence in their purchases because they can fully see the seller's online reputation.

Be Local, Do Business Global

This third round of funding enables Fiverr to further accelerate growth and product releases and enable extensive marketing to bring the Fiverr vision to more people globally, transforming a freelancer's formerly limited local pool of clients into an endless demand for talent on a global scale. Fiverr also allows local businesses to source the most optimal and cost effective talent and services regardless of geography. This enables a Denver-based graphic artist to sell services to individuals and companies in London, Berlin and Sydney.

Fiverr is Community

In a world where many entrepreneurs work from home and occasionally feel isolated, Fiverr is more than a marketplace, it's also a meeting place for freelancers, providing the opportunities, support, and tools they need to turn their talents into sales. The new Fiverr 3.0 release enhances communications features and the ability for exchanges and knowledge sharing within the Fiverr community.

Erez Shachar, Managing Partner at Qumra Capital says, "As the future of work is increasingly dominated by freelancers, entrepreneurs and independent workers, Fiverr is positioning itself as the home for this rapidly growing community. We're excited about investing in a company that is central to the success of millions of participants in the Gig Economy."

About Fiverr

Browse. Buy. Done. Fiverr(R) gives you instant access to millions of Gigs from people who love what they do. It's the easiest way for individuals and businesses to get everything done, at unbeatable value. Fiverr is the world's largest marketplace for creative and professional services, currently listing over 3 million Gigs in more than 100 different categories across 196 countries. Fiverr is one of the top 130 websites in the world according to Alexa.com. With a team of 130 people, Fiverr has primary offices in New York, Miami, and Tel Aviv. The company is backed by Bessemer Venture Partners, Accel Partners, Qumra Capital and a group of private investors.

Get Client Wins International Marketing Award

Get Client With System (Get Client) has won the prestigious Two Comma Club Award from international marketing platform ClickFunnels, recognizing Get Client's unique online marketing strategy as the only company in Hong Kong to be invited to the U.S. to receive the award in person, after achieving over $12 million in sales in 2022.

Get Client has been in business for three years now, and has been known for its unique marketing strategies that have battled through the economic crisis and won the Two Comma Club Award last year. The award recognizes companies that have earned more than $1 million in revenue from a single marketing funnel in a single year. The Two Comma Club Award also signifies that Get Client is one of only 3% of the world's online marketing companies to have achieved this feat, and that the Get Client team has abandoned the traditional marketing mindset and applied a breakthrough reactive marketing strategy to analyze consumer psychology and drive real revenue results.

Nic Leung, founder of Get Client, said, "We believe that effective online marketing is not just about placing ads on social media platforms to get a seemingly unrealistic amount of attention or impression. Instead, marketing must be linked to actual revenue. Get Client will continue to promote a responsive marketing strategy to help clients achieve an efficient return on their investment. April Lo, another founder of Get Client, said, "Professional training is different from traditional teaching, we want to help trainers enter the market with unique marketing strategies to meet the market demand for knowledge. The knowledge gained by people will help them to be more competitive, and it will also help them to increase their income. Under the leadership of the two founders, Get Client has successfully created new market opportunities in the past three years despite the impact of the epidemic, and has become a guiding light for dozens of trainers and entrepreneurs in the professional training sector, generating nearly half a billion dollars in revenue for them.

Get Client was founded in 2020 with a focus on instant and responsive online marketing, combining sales and marketing strategies to create targeted marketing messages with efficient marketing funnels, so that potential consumers can take immediate action after receiving the messages and obtain high returns for clients in a cost-effective manner. In the future, Get Client will focus on the Southeast Asian market, helping clients around the world to apply reactive marketing strategies, while keeping up with the trend of big data and artificial intelligence technology, and continuously optimizing digital marketing to help clients develop potential markets and double their revenue results.

Freelancer wins US $6 million project with NASA

Freelancer wins US$6.7m task order with NASA and the National Institutes of Health in gene editing. Freelancer Limited (ASX: FLN, OTCQX: FLNCF), the world’s largest freelancing and crowdsourcing marketplace by number of users and jobs posted, recently announced it has won a US$6.7 million task order for NASA and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of the Director (OD) Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives (DPCPSI) Office of Strategic Coordination (OSC).

NIH seeks two, three-phased contests to encourage technology development in two areas of strategic significance as part of Phase II of the NIH Somatic Cell Genome Editing (SCGE) program: 1. A highly efficient (e.g. 50%+ editing efficiency) non-viral delivery system capable of crossing the blood brain barrier to deliver genome editing machinery to a majority of target cell types in the central nervous system. 2. A programmable (e.g. 3+ configurations) delivery system to deliver genome editing machinery that can target specific tissues or cell types.

Somatic cell genome editing holds great promise in treating various diseases. However, current techniques in genome editing approaches, such as those based on CRISPR-Cas9, pose many challenges that need to be overcome before they can be widely used in the clinic. For example, the delivery of genome editors to clinically relevant cells and tissues and achievement of editing efficiency that is adequate for addressing human diseases.

These contests will be administered under the America COMPETES Act and will be launched on Freelancer.com with a total prize purse of US$6,000,000 (GMV).

This is the biggest task order to date under NASA’s NOIS2 and to be selected is testimony to the company’s track record of delivery to date under the program. It is expected that FLN will generate approximately US$700,000 in net revenue contribution for this task order.

About the NIH SCGE Program

The NIH Common Fund’s Somatic Cell Genome Editing (SCGE) program is working to improve the efficacy and specificity of gene editing approaches to help reduce the burden of common and rare diseases caused by genetic changes. SCGE is developing quality tools to perform and assess effective and safe genome editing in non-reproductive (“somatic”) cells of the body. These research tools will be made widely available to the research community to reduce the time and cost required to develop new therapies.

About Freelancer

Twelve-time Webby award-winning Freelancer.com is the world’s largest freelancing and crowdsourcing marketplace by total number of users and projects posted. More than 60 million registered users have posted over 20 million projects and contests to date in over 2,000 areas as diverse as website development, logo design, marketing, copywriting, astrophysics, aerospace engineering and manufacturing. Freelancer owns Escrow.com, the leading provider of secure online payments and online transaction management for consumers and businesses on the Internet with over US$6 billion in transactions secured. Freelancer also owns Freightlancer & Loadshift, enterprise freight marketplaces with over 550 million kilometres of freight posted since inception. Freelancer Limited is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange under the ticker ASX:FLN and is quoted on OTCQX Best Market under the ticker FLNCF.

Zinnov and Microsoft Study Indian Gig Economy

Gig workers will play an instrumental role in enabling India's USD 5 Tn economy, with the current 7.7 Mn-strong gig workforce leading the charge. With this talent pool set to more than triple to a massive 23.5 Mn by 2030, these workers will generate USD 250 Bn of work, notes a joint study by Zinnov and Microsoft. Zinnov, a leading global management consulting and strategy advisory firm, along with Microsoft, released the findings of the study titled, 'Unlocking the Power of the Gig Economy with Cloud PC', which highlights how technology will be critical in enabling the gig economy.

The joint study also explores the industry challenges that the gig workforce faces, and reveals that in the post-pandemic business environment, Finance & Insurance, and IT sectors are witnessing 31% and 20% increased engagement with gig workers. Pre-pandemic, nearly half of all gig workers were concentrated in two sectors – Retail Trade and Transportation, which is rapidly giving way to nearly 35% of gig workers being employed in the IT sector. In fact, soon every third 'employee' of an IT organization will be a gig worker. This is especially significant, given the current dichotomy of mass layoffs and skilled labour shortage that companies are grappling with. As organizations explore new, innovative business models to circumvent this dichotomy, they will increasingly engage with the rising gig economy.

Engaging with the gig economy is not only beneficial for enterprises, but gig workers as well, notes the study. Viewed through the economical, operational, and innovation lens, gig workers benefit through high-paying, multiple short-term jobs that enable flexibility. It also allows for rapid upskilling while in some cases, enables investment in passions and interests that pay them. For enterprises, engagement with the gig workforce ensures cost savings, flexibility of an ad-hoc, project-based working model that can be scaled or descaled quickly, enable quick onboarding, and access to highly skilled, niche talent.

However, engaging with gig workers comes with its own set of challenges, including concerns around data security, IP theft, access management, cultural orientation, etc. And these challenges span across planning, onboarding, execution, and payment phases in the lifecycle of gig workers. The study reveals that more than 70% of CXOs feel that Onboarding and Execution are the two difficult yet crucial phases, addressing which can enable widespread adoption of the gig economy model. Technologies such as Cloud, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Cybersecurity are being leveraged to address such challenges in a transparent and productive way.

Cloud technology, which enabled the seamless transition to remote work, will be critical in addressing the challenges of the gig economy. It enables independent professionals such as gig workers to operate remotely, communicate freely, and navigate financial and technical complexities with dexterity and ease. Products such as the Windows 365 Cloud PC combine the power and security of the Cloud with the versatility and simplicity of the PC, empowering both gig workers and enterprises to collaborate from anywhere in the new world of work.

Rajat Kohli, Partner at Zinnov, commented, "The current dichotomy of skilled talent deficit and layoffs, underscore the importance of a strong gig workforce strategy. With every enterprise in need of digital skills such as AI, Automation, Data Analytics, etc., leaders will look to the gig workforce to fulfil short- to medium-term projects on an ad-hoc basis. With the percentage of gig workers in IT organizations expected to touch 35% in the near future, newer enabling engagement models and platforms will take center stage. Hence, products such as Microsoft's Cloud PC will act as two-way enablers. On one hand, they will become critical in overcoming the barriers for widespread gig economy adoption and enable cost and time savings for enterprises. On the other, they will enable seamless gigs, offering flexibility and upskilling opportunities for the gig workers."

Bhaskar Basu, Country Head, Modern Work, Microsoft India, said, "Technology is a key enabler of the gig economy and will play a foundational role in defining the future of work and workplaces. To thrive in a hybrid world, people and organizations need solutions that are fluid, dynamic, and Cloud-powered. At Microsoft, we are committed to supporting organizations and individuals to work on their own terms, without compromising on security or accessibility. By providing secure and reliable solutions that support working from anywhere and on any device, our aim is to empower a diverse range of talent to participate in this growing sector."

Microsoft enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Microsoft set up its India operations in 1990. Today, Microsoft entities in India have over 20,000 employees, engaged in sales and marketing, research, development and customer services and support, across 11 Indian cities – Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, New Delhi, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Noida, and Pune. Microsoft offers its global cloud services from local data centers to accelerate digital transformation across Indian startups, businesses, and government organizations.

Founded in 2002, Zinnov is a global management and strategy consulting firm in New York, Santa Clara, Houston, Seattle, Bangalore, Gurgaon, Paris, and Pune. Over the past 20 years, Zinnov has successfully consulted with over 250+ Fortune 500 enterprises to develop actionable insights to help them accelerate their Digital Transformation journeys to create value – across dimensions of both revenue and optimization. With core expertise in Digital Engineering, Digital Transformation, Innovation, and Outsourcing Advisory, Zinnov assists clients by:

- Structuring and implementing Digital Transformation levers enabled by technologies like AI/ML, Cloud, IoT, and Intelligent Automation;

- Advising global PE firms in asset shortlisting and target evaluation, commercial due diligence, and value creation;

- Helping global companies outline and drive their open innovation programs, design and operate accelerator programs, and enable collaboration with start-ups across specific use cases and predefined outcomes;

- Enabling global companies to develop and optimize a global engineering footprint through center setups, and technology and functional accelerators to achieve higher R&D efficiencies, innovation, and productivity;

- Growing revenue for companies' products and services in newer markets through account intelligence, market entry, and market expansion advisory.

With their team of experienced consultants, subject matter experts, and research professionals, Zinnov serves clients from across multiple industry verticals including Enterprise Software, BFSI, Healthcare, Automotive, Retail, and Telecom in the US, Europe, Japan, and India.