Type of site | Freelance marketplace |
---|---|
Founded | 2008 |
Headquarters | Melbourne, Australia |
Area served | Worldwide |
Owner | 99designs Pty Ltd |
Founder(s) | Matt Mickiewicz, Mark Harbottle |
Key people | Patrick Llewellyn, (CEO) |
Industry | Internet |
URL | 99designs |
Current status | Active |
99designs is a Melbourne, Australia, based company that operates a freelancer platform for connecting graphic designers and clients. [1] [2] [3] The company was founded in 2008, and has a United States office in Oakland, California. [4]
99designs was founded by Matt Mickiewicz and Mark Harbottle as a spin-off of Sitepoint, a website started in 1998 as a forum for web developers and designers. Designers on its forums began organizing contests based on fictional client briefs. [5] [6] [7] The founders decided to test charging a fee to post briefs for real projects, eventually creating 99designs as a separate company for the contests. [5] [8] [9]
In 2008, the company opened a San Francisco office, because the majority of the platform's initial clients and designers were in the United States. [10] [11] It later moved its U.S. headquarters to Oakland, California. [4] By 2012, the site had 175,000 designers in 192 countries. [12] By 2016, it had about one million registered designers. [13] The platform was later redesigned to allow customers to directly search for and hire designers, outside of design competitions. [14] [15] [16]
In 2012, the company acquired a European competitor called 12designer, based in Germany. [12] [17] Its office became the European headquarters of 99designs. [18] In 2013, the company acquired LogoChef, a Brazilian competitor. [19] In 2017, the company relocated back to Melbourne. [20] [21]
The company was acquired in October 2020 by American Irish company Cimpress. [22]
In 2011, the company received US$35 million in financing from Accel Partners and other investors. [23] [24] [25] It subsequently raised another $10 million in 2015. [13] [20]
The company became profitable in 2017, [14] and in February 2018 reported $60 million a year in revenue. [20]
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