Archive for January, 2014

Freelancer.com founder a business winner in 2013

Friday, January 3rd, 2014
Photo credit; Snap on Flickr

Photo credit; Snap on Flickr

Freelancer.com founder Matt Barrie has been named a business winner on Yahoo! Finance Australia’s list of business winners and losers for 2013.

Barrie enjoyed one of the year’s most successful IPOs when shares in the online freelancing network shot as high as $2.60 on their first day.

Coming off a 50 cent issue price, the Freelancer frenzy briefly made the company a billion-dollar concern.

Barrie holds 46% of the company and, even with Freelancer shares now trading around $1.30, his stake is still worth approximately $260 million.

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oDesk to open Australia office to take on Freelancer.com

Wednesday, January 1st, 2014
Photo credit; Alisa on Flickr

Photo credit; Alisa on Flickr

Online freelance agency oDesk.com, which recently merged with rival Elance.com, is considering opening an office in Australia to compete with Australia-based Freelancer.com.

Matt Cooper, oDesk’s vice-president of its international division, said Australia was now the company’s second-largest market globally with more than 50,000 registered clients. He also mentioned that oDesk, which is based in Silicon Valley, has twice the penetration rate in Australia as compared with its home market of the US.

To read more on this story, click here.