In this article we discuss the top 5 best freelancing platforms for 2021. If you want to read our detailed analysis of the freelance industry, go directly to Top 10 Best Freelancing Platforms for 2021.
5. PeoplePerHour Ltd.
PeoplePerHour Ltd. is a London-based online platform that connects different businesses across the world to freelancers. It was founded in 2007 by Xenios Thrasyvoulou and Simos Kitiris. The flexibility that the platform offers means that the business model for freelancers is scalable from an hourly basis all the way to enterprise level teams. The website is the leading freelance platform in the UK and has collaborated with several small and medium businesses. It holds powerful insights into the freelance market in the country.
PeoplePerHour has an office in Athens as well, but it primarily serves clients in the United Kingdom. It has so far raised $10.5 million in funding, including $3.2 million in the latest round. In 2012, Wired Magazine named the firm as one of the hottest startups in Europe. It is a privately-held firm backed by venture capital, with Index Ventures being the lead. It paid the firm $3.2 million in 2012. Mike Volpi, an American venture capitalist, has named the firm as one of the most underrated companies in the portfolio of Index Ventures.
Last month, Stefani Thrasyvoulou, the marketing lead of PeoplePerHour, told American business publication Forbes that the firm had set up a new system called Plus Works which matched the top freelancers on the website with bigger clients that offered more long-term projects. She said the service was being offered in addition to the tiered ratings system and the reviews that were already available on the website. Last year, the company also partnered with Indeez to provide COVID-19 insurance for employees in an industry first.
4. SimplyHired
SimplyHired is a California-based online recruitment advertising network founded in 2004. The firm was purchased by Indeed, another online recruitment firm, in 2016. The website collects job listings from thousands of online postings and aggregates them in one place. It then lists these on the company platform, offering freelancers ample opportunity to bid for projects. Employers can get coveted top positions on the website by paying for it. Freelancers can look for jobs by interest or location to suit their purpose.
Before the acquisition by Indeed, SimplyHired managed to raise $34.5 million in capital, including 12 million in 2014. The money came from Foundation Capital and Ridge Ventures. The purchase of SimplyHired was made possible by Recruit Holdings Co Ltd. (NASDAQ: RCRRF), a human resources firm based in Japan. Recruit Holdings is the parent owner of Indeed and made the decision to continue listing jobs on SimplyHired under a partnership deal with Indeed. At the time, SimplyHired had more than 30 million users active on the website.
According to TechCrunch, the listings of SimplyHired covered more than 6 million jobs from 700,000 thousand employers. Since the acquisition, the firm does not disclose website stats. In 2018, Recruit Holdings also acquired another job hunting website by the name of Glassdoor for $1.2 billion. Recruit Holdings has a market cap of more than $80 billion and an annual revenue of over $22 billion in 2020. Analysts are projecting the fortunes of the company to improve.
3. Guru
Guru is a Pittsburgh-based freelance marketplace founded in 1998 as eMoonlighter, an online clearing house for tech workers seeking short-term contracts. In 2012, the company was acquired by Unicru, a human resources software firm based in Portland. Guru has received more than $41 million in funding so far. Guru was one of the pioneers of matching freelance skills with the jobs online. In 2002, it unveiled a SmartMatch technology that matched jobs on the basis of skills of all types, including psychological evaluations.
The parent owners of Guru have merged with other American software firms under the Krosnos Group (NASDAQ: KRO) to rebrand themselves as Ultimate Kronos Group that is headquartered in Florida. The firm provides workforce and human capital management solutions to businesses. It also operates in the cloud computing business, competing with the likes of Microsoft and Oracle. The firm has over 12,000 employees and also provides payroll services.
2. Kolabtree
Kolabtree is an online marketplace that offers businesses of all sizes to hire scientists to take them to the next level. The company was founded in 2016 by Ashmita Das and is headquartered in London. The company has a small workforce but an annual revenue of $27 million. The company has more than 9,000 registered PhD users who offer services ranging from data analytics, statistical reviews, literature reviews, and writing or consulting. As the number of PhDs across the world increases, the website is expected to grow.
Forbes reports that the number of PhDs employed in the academic sector is decreasing as more and more opt for jobs in the private sector after leaving the academic career. The fields in which these experts work include AI and machine learning, agriculture and food science, biotech, engineering, medical science, physics, chemistry, social science and economics.
1. Experfy
Experfy is a Boston-based online consulting firm that is aiming to target the scarcity of talent in the data science category on digital platforms. The company operates in a highly specialized field and was founded by Harpreet Singh and Sarabjout Kaur, who both serve as CEO of the company. The stated goal of the firm is to match the best artificial intelligent experts and data scientists with jobs in the world at breakneck speed without compromising on quality and compliance. The firm also offers businesses and governments the chance to build teams.
The firm has raised more than $1 million in funding so far, including an undisclosed amount in the latest round. The firm has so far assembled some 30,000 field experts for placement in a wide range of industries that require help with data science. In 2017, marketing research firm Gartner named Experfy as a Cool Vendor in the Data Science and Machine Learning category.
You can also take a peek at Cathie Wood’s Thoughts on the Future, ARK’s Portfolio and Latest Stock Picks and Billionaire Paul Tudor Jones’ Top 10 Stock Picks and Latest Portfolio.
