
Australia’s DesignCrowd wins backing from AirTree Ventures
DesignCrowd, an Australia-based crowdsourcing platform used to source designs from hundreds of freelance designers, has received A$6 million ($4.6 million) in a Series B funding round led by AirTree Ventures.
Starfish Ventures, which previously invested A$6 million in the company across two rounds, in 2011 and 2013, also participated. The new capital will go towards improving the platform and continuing its international expansion.
Founded in 2008, DesignCrowd allows customers to post design briefs online, receive multiple submissions (the average number of designs per project is 102), and then work with designers on revisions before choosing the preferred one. The company has nearly 440,000 designers in its network and run projects and contests worth a cumulative A$23.7 million. It wants to hit A$40 million in 2015.
Three quarters of DesignCrowd's revenues come from outside of Australia and the company plans on ramping up its sales and marketing globally, as well as doubling the size of tis engineering and customer service teams this year.
"Crowdsourcing is still only a fraction of the A$44 billion design industry and the DesignCrowd team has managed to take market share from incumbents by obsessively focusing on product to deliver the best design outcomes for customers," said Craig Blair, co-founder of AirTree, in a statement.
AirTree was founded by Blair and Daniel Petre. Both previously worked for Netus, an Australian technology investment company that was acquired by Fairfax Media in 2012 and now operates as Fairfax Digital Ventures. Petre was also an investor at Ecorp, known for founding eBay Australia, while Blair is a serial entrepreneur and investor.
The firm, which targets Australia's underserved Series A space, closed its debut fund at A$60 million in July 2014.
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