Freelance marketplaces oDesk and Elance announce merger
19 December 2013
Online freelancer marketplaces oDesk and Elance, who together will bill around $750m (£458m) in 2013, are to merge.
Thu, 19 Dec 2013Online freelancer marketplaces oDesk and Elance, who together will bill around $750m (£458m) in 2013, are to merge.
This brings together 5m freelancers who work through oDesk and 3m on Elance onto one platform, which will have over 2m client businesses in over 180 countries.
However, the companies will continue to operate through their two existing platforms. A new name for the combined entity will be announced once the merger has formally completed, which should happen by the end of April 2014.
Elance chief executive officer Fabio Rosati will serve as CEO of the combined company, while oDesk executive chairman Thomas Layton will continue in the same role at the merged firm, and oDesk CEO Gary Swart will act as a strategic advisor.
Says Swart: “The $422bn global staffing market is ripe for reinvention. With online work growing at least 10 times more rapidly than staffing overall, oDesk is thrilled to join with Elance in order to innovate faster.”
Rosati suggests the company has ambitions to change the world of work “just as Amazon reinvented retail, and Apple iTunes transformed the music industry”.
Commenting on the merger, Barnaby Lashbrooke, founder of Time Etc, a rival transatlantic platform, says: “The freelance sector desperately needs quality control - it needs Davids, not Goliaths. And there is a real risk that Elance and oDesk merging will create an undifferentiated freelancer market where the lowest common denominator prevails. Quality could fall foul of quantity and reduced cost.”
This brings together 5m freelancers who work through oDesk and 3m on Elance onto one platform, which will have over 2m client businesses in over 180 countries.
However, the companies will continue to operate through their two existing platforms. A new name for the combined entity will be announced once the merger has formally completed, which should happen by the end of April 2014.
Elance chief executive officer Fabio Rosati will serve as CEO of the combined company, while oDesk executive chairman Thomas Layton will continue in the same role at the merged firm, and oDesk CEO Gary Swart will act as a strategic advisor.
Says Swart: “The $422bn global staffing market is ripe for reinvention. With online work growing at least 10 times more rapidly than staffing overall, oDesk is thrilled to join with Elance in order to innovate faster.”
Rosati suggests the company has ambitions to change the world of work “just as Amazon reinvented retail, and Apple iTunes transformed the music industry”.
Commenting on the merger, Barnaby Lashbrooke, founder of Time Etc, a rival transatlantic platform, says: “The freelance sector desperately needs quality control - it needs Davids, not Goliaths. And there is a real risk that Elance and oDesk merging will create an undifferentiated freelancer market where the lowest common denominator prevails. Quality could fall foul of quantity and reduced cost.”
