Crowdsourcing start-up DesignCrowd is to accelerate its global expansion after securing a $3 million investment from heavyweight Australian VC firm Starfish Ventures.<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The equity return for the investment was not disclosed, although Starfish says it now controls a \u201cmeaningful minority stake\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n DesignCrowd was launched in 2007 by 23-year-old entrepreneur Alec Lynch, from his mother\u2019s dining room table.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The site acts as an online marketplace for designers, allowing businesses to \u201ccrowdsource\u201d creative projects.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n More than 40,000 designers are registered to the site, across 159 countries. A New Zealand site recently launched, with further international expansion planned.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Lynch says: \u201cStarfish\u2019s investment is very exciting \u2013 it will help us grow from a bootstrapped Sydney start-up into a global company.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve done well in Australia, now we want to take on the world and Starfish is the perfect partner to help us succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Lynch took $300,000 in angel funding in 2009. He will now \u201chire aggressively\u201d to help boost the business\u2019 growth.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Tony Glenning, who led the investment for Starfish, tells StartupSmart that he sees great potential for the business.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe really like the crowdsourcing model and we think Alec and his team have done a phenomenal job,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s been a backlash against some crowdsourcing sites, but DesignCrowd has been able to make the process fair and sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYou see the Freelancer.com model where it is almost a race to the bottom on price. DesignCrowd has a more sustainable business model where it\u2019s fair pay for fair work. Businesses don\u2019t necessarily want the cheapest, they want quality.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI think the crowdsourcing market is in the proliferation stage at the moment, I\u2019m not expecting consolidation any time soon.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019d like to see DesignCrowd achieve market leadership and then a trade sale would be a natural course. But we are concentrating on building the business first \u2013 the exit will then look after itself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Crowdsourcing start-up DesignCrowd is to accelerate its global expansion after securing a $3 million investment from heavyweight Australian VC firm<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,11,24,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45164"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}