The online freelance talent marketplace Upwork filed last week to go public.
According to the filing, Upwork has 375,000 registered freelancers and 475,000 client businesses located across 180 countries.
The company reported sales of $164.4 million in 2016 and $202.6 million in 2017, an annual growth rate of 23%. For the first half of 2018, sales were $121.9 million, up 28% from the prior year.
Historically Upwork mostly served small businesses. As recently as several years ago, over 80% of their business came from SMBs.
But that's changed as enterprises have started to become major users of online talent platforms.
This is highlighted in Upwork's filing, which says 10 percent of its overall business came from a single, unnamed client in the six months that ended June 2018. It also says two clients each accounted for 10 percent of its revenues in 2016 and 2017.
Whoever those firms are, the obviously large enterprises.
Upwork competitor Fiverr is also considering going public.
That both Upwork and Fiverr have reached the size and scale to go public shows the maturation and growing importance of the online talent marketplace industry.
Data from the MBO Partners State of Independence study series (shown below) on the growth of independent workers reporting using online talent marketplaces nicely illustrates this.
Also making it clear online talent marketplaces are mainstream is almost every study on talent management now mentions their use.
A good example is HR services firm Mercer's Global Talent Trends study, but you can pick up most any talent related study these days and you will find it covers the growing use of online talent marketplaces.
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