Crowdsourcing design platform DesignCrowd has announced it has raised another $6 million in capital, led by new Australian venture capital firm AirTree Ventures.
DesignCrowd’s new round of capital follows the $6 million previously invested by Starfish Ventures, which brings the total capital raised by the company to $12 million.
“AirTree Ventures is excited to be able to lead this round,” AirTree Ventures co-founder Craig Blair said.
“Crowdsourcing is still only a fraction of the $44 billion design industry and the DesignCrowd team has managed to take market share from incumbents by obsessively focusing on product to deliver the best design outcomes for customers. We are looking forward to being part of the DesignCrowd growth story and welcoming the team to the Airtree Ventures family.”
Alec Lynch, founder and CEO of DesignCrowd, said the latest funding round will be used to boost the company’s sales and marketing, production and innovation, and customer service.
“Our goal is to pioneer design crowdsourcing, to perfect the design crowdsourcing process and to take crowdsourcing to every corner of the world. We aim to have the number one design crowdsourcing service in the world — and this capital will help us do that,” Lynch said.
“We plan on scaling sales and marketing globally, that is, outside of Australia and especially in the US. Already 75 per cent of our revenues come from outside of Australia, but we believe there’s huge room for further growth. We will also be investing heavily in product and customer service, and plan on doubling the size of our engineering and customer service teams in 2015.”
Lynch added that DesignCrowd aims to reach $40 million in designer projects in 2015, double the $20 million reached the year prior.