DesignCrowd raises $ 10 million to develop its DIY platform, BrandCrowd – Heaven32

DesignMultitude announced today that it has raised AU $ 10 million (approximately US $ 7.6 billion) in pre-IPO funding. The capital will be devoted to outsourcing and product development, with the aim of accelerating the growth of BrandCrowd, its DIY platform.

The new funding comes as DesignCrowd prepares for a possible initial public offering on the Australian Stock Exchange. Investors in the round include Perennial Value Management, Alium Capital, Ellerston Capital, Regal Funds Management and CVC, as well as returning sponsors Starfish Ventures and AirTree Ventures. DesignCrowd has now raised over A $ 22 million in total.

Founded in 2007 and based in Sydney, Australia, DesignCrowd has built its reputation as a design crowdsourcing platform, allowing users to find proposals from designers around the world. BrandCrowd was launched to complement DesignCrowd’s market / crowdsourcing model, expanding its potential user base and differentiating it from other sites people use to find designers, such as 99designs and Fiverr.

While there are other DIY logo makers aimed at entrepreneurs and small brands, including tools from Design Hill, Canva, and Tailor Brands, BrandCrowd was already one step ahead as they already have access to over 800,000 designers through DesignCrowd, which helps the company find the world’s best logo designers for its library, said co-founder and CEO Alec Lynch. BrandCrowd prefers to purchase designs in advance before posting them, as all logos are platform exclusive (users may pay additional fees to remove logos from their library).

BrandCrowd customers pay a one-time fee to upload a logo and can sign up for monthly or annual subscriptions. Many use both platforms, Lynch said.

“Por ejemplo, si una pequeña empresa desea comenzar por obtener un diseño de logotipo personalizado de un designer en DesignCrowd, entonces the permitimos usar ese logotipo en nuestras herramientas de design de bricolaje en BrandCrowd para hacer todo de lodeesit pu presentation cards. Instagram posts and e-signing, ”Lynch said. “You can even make changes to your logo in BrandCrowd using our logo editing tool.”

DesignCrowd’s net revenue in 2020 increased 54% year-over-year, primarily due to BrandCrowd. The company says BrandCrowd has had more than five million subscriptions in the past 12 months, with more than half of its revenue coming from the United States.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the company experienced headwinds in March and April 2020, Lynch said, but global demand for online design then grew and began to rise.

“Our hypothesis is that the pandemic has led more people to start new businesses in the second half of 2020 and more people to need design for these businesses, which has served us well,” he added. “In addition to this small ‘boom’ in small business startups, we believe the pandemic has likely accelerated an existing trend of companies looking to design online rather than offline.”