Freelancer.com – Six Figure Name in 2009 – $14 Million Dollar IPO in 2013
The domain name FreeLancer.com was acquired in 2009 for a Six Figure Sum as reported by TheDomains.com, The domain was previously parked before the company acquired and developed the domain name into the leading marketplace for Job Outsourcing.
A report on TechCrunch.com today announces that FreeLancer.com is hoping to raised $14.2 Million Dollars in an IPO, Valuing the business at over $200 Million Dollars!
I have used FreeLancer.com myself several times for various domain related projects from finding content writers to having unique coding created for some of my websites, It is a good and safe marketplace to use and I hope with the IPO we see some more cash being invested and taking FreeLancer.com to the next level.
Do you think FreeLancer.com would have been as successful on their previous domain names?
Before FreeLancer.com was formed after it purchased several other competing marketplaces named below.
Freelancer.com is the world’s largest freelancing, outsourcing and crowdsourcing marketplace by number of users and projects. We connect over 9,227,787 employers and freelancers globally from over 247 countries, regions and territories. Through our marketplace, employers can hire freelancers to do work in areas such as software development, writing, data entry and design right through to engineering, the sciences, sales and marketing, accounting and legal services.
Freelancer Limited will soon be traded on Australian Securities Exchange under the ticker ASX:FLN
Statistics since 2001*
- Number of posted projects: 5,026,358
- Number of verified users: 9,227,795
- Value of projects posted: $1,253,921,000 USD
- * Data aggregated for all acquired marketplaces
Statistics during last 24 hours
- Number of posted projects: 2,964
- Number of verified users: 8,702
Provenance
Freelancer.com has acquired several outsourcing marketplaces including GetAFreelancer.com and EUFreelance.com (founded by Magnus Tibell in 2004, Sweden), LimeExchange (a former business of Lime Labs LLC, USA), Scriptlance.com (founded by Rene Trescases in 2001, Canada) one of the early pioneers in freelancing, Freelancer.de Booking Center (Germany),Freelancer.co.uk (United Kingdom), Webmaster-talk.com (USA), a forum for webmasters, Rent-A-Coder and vWorker (founded by Ian Ippolito, USA).
Another Platform and domain name I would like to see FreeLancer.com purchase would be FreeLance.com who compete on another excellent Generic .COM domain name.
Here is the full story from TechCrunch.com
Job Outsourcing Marketplace Freelancer.com Files For $14.2M IPO
Freelancer.com announced today that it has filed for its initial public offering on the Australian Securities Exchange. The company aims to raise $15 million AUD (about $14.2 million USD). Thirty million new shares will be offered to the public at $0.50 AUD per share. Its IPO values the online services marketplace at $218 million AUD (about $206 million USD).
Freelancer.com plans to use funds raised in its IPO to fund organic growth and acquisition opportunities. The company disclosed in its prospectus that it forecasts 2013 revenue at $18.3 million AUD (about $17.3 million USD), compared to $10.6 million AUD (about $10 million USD) in 2012, with gross margins of 88%. Consolidated net profit after tax is forecast at $471,000 million AUD, a 35% decrease from $728,000 AUD in 2012. Gross payment volume in 2013 is expected to reach $80.9 million AUSD.
5.1 million new shares will be made available to eligible employees under Freelancer.com’s new employee share plan. Freelancers active on the site can invest through the Freelancer Foundation Shareholder program.
Freelancer.com is currently the world’s largest online marketplace for outsourcing and freelancing services, as measured by the total number of users and projects. The site has over 9 million users and 4.9 million projects that it says is worth over $1.2 billion AUD.
Shortly after founding in 2009, Freelancer.com acquired GetAFreelancer. Since then, it has pursued an aggressive acquisition strategy to increase its global footprint, scooping up Scriptlance in Canada, EUFreelance, LimeExchange in the U.S. and RentaCoder/vWorker. Freelancer.com has itself been an acquisition target. Last month, Japan-based HR site Recruit Co., which is also preparing for an IPO, reportedly made a $400 million offer. Like Freelancer.com, Recruit Co.’s has been busy buying up competing sites, including NuGrid in India and Indeed.com.
In Freelancer.com’s IPO prospectus, CEO and Chairman Matt Barrie said that Freelancer.com’s growth strategy focuses on the next wave of people to go online in developing economies.
“Today, I find it hard to believe that with 7.1 billion people in the world, only 2.7 billion people are on the Internet. Almost 4.5 billion people are yet to connect. We are confident that there is tremendous growth potential ahead for the Company, as the rest of the world’s population goes online,” he wrote.
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