(Press Release) Freelancer.com acquired Spanish and Portuguese freelancing marketplaces Nubelo and Prolancer. Nubelo was financed by Caixa Capital Risc, Nero Ventures, South Ventures, Start-Up Chile, Cabiedes & Partners, Mountain Nazca and South Ventures.
Freelancer.com, the world’s largest freelancing and crowdsourcing marketplace by number of users and projects posted, announced today the acquisition of Nubelo and Prolancer, the largest Spanish and Portuguese freelancing marketplaces after Freelancer.com, respectively.
Freelancer.com expands its leadership in the Latin American, Spanish and Portuguese markets by
acquiring the Nubelo and Prolancer freelancing marketplaces. This acquisition places Freelancer.com as the dominant leader in the Latin American, Spanish and Portuguese markets, leaving remaining
competitors far behind.
Nubelo was founded in 2012 by Spanish entrepreneur Francesc Font, and Argentinean twin brothers Nicolas and Jorge Araujo Muller. Headquartered in Barcelona, and venture financed by Caixa Capital
Risc, Nero Ventures, South Ventures, Start-Up Chile, Cabiedes & Partners, Mountain Nazca & South Ventures, Nubelo grew to become the largest freelancing marketplace in the Spanish language after Freelancer.com , with 50 employees across offices in Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Bogotá and San Pablo, Brazil.
In July 2015, Nubelo took control of Prolancer.com.br, a Brazilian marketplace founded by Sergio
Mendez Baiges and headquartered in São Paulo, in order to expand its reach to the Portuguese market.
Combined they successfully grew to almost 750,000 registered users and over 122,000 posted projects.
After recently opening its Buenos Aires office in 2016, Freelancer.com continues to invest and expand in the Spanish and Portuguese speaking markets. With these acquisitions, Freelancer.com expects the
Buenos Aires office to grow its presence.
This rapidly growing market has become one of the fastest growing regions for the company. When
Freelancer.com launched operations in Latin America in 2012, the Spanish and Portuguese markets
represented less than 0.2% of Freelancer.com ’s operations. After four years of growth, this grew to
roughly 10% of Freelancer.com’s total revenue, generated from 1.8 million users, who have posted over 502,000 projects. The acquisitions of Nubelo and Prolancer will extend this growth.
Nubelo’s CEO, Francesc Font said “We are excited to announce that Nubelo has been acquired by
Freelancer.com, the undisputed global leader in the space. Our community of freelancers made
Nubelo’s success possible, and will now get to enjoy more opportunities for working with a much greater range of employers and across a more diverse range of areas of work. This acquisition will be highly beneficial for our users, and we are honored that a company such as Freelancer.com has recognised our tough and valuable work to build Nubelo into the Spanish market leader it is today.”
Sergio Mendez, CEO of Prolancer, said “After four years of hard and intense work, I’m pleased that this acquisition by the world’s largest and most important freelancing and crowdsourcing marketplace will take our users to the next level in terms of job opportunities and access to the best talent in the world.”
“This acquisition reinforces our global presence and international expansion, consolidating our platform as the leader not only in the English language, but now also in all Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries. We welcome all of Nubelo’s and Prolancer’s users to our community where they will find over 8,000 new jobs per day, and the ability to work with our talented worldwide community of 22 million users,” said Matt Barrie, Chief Executive of Freelancer.com. The terms of the acquisition were undisclosed.
