PeoplePerHour is a UK-based company whose function is as an online platform giving businesses access to freelance workers.[1]
Founded in 2007 by Xenios Thrasyvoulou and Simos Kitiris,[2] the company has offices in London and Athens.[3] Businesses opting to use the website are often start-ups or SMEs looking to grow flexibly by hiring freelancers to handle projects rather than hiring in-house or via agencies. Jobs start from little as an hour (“Offers”) and can be ramped up as needed to build whole teams online, meaning the model is scalable all the way up to global enterprises. They operate as part of what has become part of the “talent cloud”[4] with thousands of freelancers, offerings a range of skills on a flexible and efficient basis. They also promote the benefits of freelancing as a means to allow people to live more freely, working where and when best suits their chosen lifestyle.
As the leading marketplace for freelance talent in the UK,[5] PeoplePerHour hold a powerful insight into the self-employed segment of the labour market and have created and collaborated on numerous research projects on SMEs, freelancing and the gig economy and provide resources for new and growing businesses and those looking to pursue a freelance career.
There is some debate as to whether the emergence of this type of freelance marketplace is part of a longer-term structural change in the way that companies across the world manage their human resources.[6] Figures from the UK Office for National Statistics show that 358,000 more people aged 65 or over are currently working than was the case a decade ago.[7] Usage statistics from PeoplePerHour indicate that the number of retirees looking for work using the website has increased by 137 per cent during 2012.[7]
In August 2012, PeoplePerHour was named by the science and technology magazine, Wired UK as one of "Europe's 100 Hottest Startups of 2012".[8] In 2012 its 50-person engineering department relocated to Athens.[9] One of the major investors in PeoplePerHour's is Index Ventures, which gave the company £2M (3.2M dollars) in 2012.[9][10] Mike Volpi has named PeoplePerHour among the three "most underrated companies" in the Index's portfolio.[11] In its previous seed round, the company had raised approximately £425k.[12]Upwork, formerly Elance-oDesk,[2] is a global freelancing platform where businesses and independent professionals connect and collaborate remotely. In 2015, Elance-oDesk was rebranded as Upwork.[3] It is based in Mountain View and San Francisco, California. The full name is Upwork Global Inc.
Upwork has twelve million registered freelancers and five million registered clients.[4][5]
Three million jobs are posted annually, worth a total of $1 billion
USD, making it the largest freelancer marketplace in the world.[6][2][7]
Elance was founded in 1999 by Beerud Sheth, Srini Anumolu and Sanjay Noronha.[8] oDesk was founded in 2003[9] by Odysseas Tsatalos and Stratis Karamanlakis.[10] Upwork was formed 18 months after Elance and oDesk announced their merger on December 18, 2013 to create Elance-oDesk.[11] With the launch of Upwork, the oDesk platform was upgraded and rebranded and the company announced that the Elance platform would be phased out within a couple of years, resulting in a single freelance marketplace.[12]
The company was listed on the Inc. 5000 list from 2009-2014.[13]
In early September 2015, the service experienced an outage which led to an apology being issued by CEO Stephane Kasriel.[14] This led to the introduction of an Upwork Status page to offer freelancers and clients greater transparency.[citation needed]
As of March 2017, it reported 14 million users and 10.2 regular user in 180 countries with $1B in annual freelancer billings.[15][16] From its foundation in 1999, the company has raised a total of $168 million through 10 private equity funding rounds.[17]
The company filed for an initial public offering on October 3, 2018.[18][13]
Upwork allows clients to interview, hire and work with freelancers and agencies through the company's platform. The platform now includes a real-time chat platform aimed at reducing the time to find and hire freelancers.[3]
The platform offers a time sheet application that tracks time and takes screenshots while the freelancer is working.[19]
Fiverr is an online marketplace for freelance services. Founded in 2010, the company is based in Tel Aviv, Israel,[2] and provides a platform for freelancers to offer services to customers worldwide.[3] As of 2012, over three million services were listed on Fiverr.[4]
Fiverr was founded by Micha Kaufman and Shai Wininger, and was launched in February 2010. The founders came up with the concept of a marketplace that would provide a two sided platform for people to buy and sell a variety of digital services typically offered by freelance contractors. Services offered on the site include writing, translation, graphic design, video editing and programming.[5][6][7] Fiverr's services start at US$5, and can go up to thousands of dollars with Gig Extras. Each service offered is called a "Gig".[8]
The website was launched in early 2010 and by 2012 was hosting over 1.3 million Gigs.[9] The website transaction volume has grown 600% since 2011. Additionally, Fiverr.com has been ranked among the top 100 most popular sites in the United States and top 200 in the world since the beginning of 2013.[4]
On June 1, 2010, Fiverr received a seed investment of US$1 million from Guy Gamzu and other angel investors, and in May 2012, Fiverr secured US$15 million in funding from Accel Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners, bringing the company's total funding to US$20 million.[3]
In December 2013, Fiverr released their iOS app in the Apple App Store,[10] and in March 2014, Fiverr released their Android app in the Google Play store.[11]
During August 2014, Fiverr announced that it has raised US$30 million in a Series C round of funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, Accel (formerly known as Accel Partners) and other investors. The round brings their total funding to date to US$50 million.[3]
In October 2015, Amazon.com started legal action against 1,114 Fiverr sellers it claims provide fake reviews on the US version of its website. Fiverr did not dispute Amazon's allegations and stated: "As Amazon noted, we have worked closely together to remove services that violate our terms of use, and respond promptly to any reports of inappropriate content."[12]
In November 2015, Fiverr announced that it had raised US$60 million in a Series D round of funding, led by Square Peg Capital. The round brings their total funding to date to $110 million.[13] At the same time, the company announced that it was expanding the marketplace to allow sellers the ability to price productized services, known as Gigs, at prices above the original US$5 price.[14]