Gigster is shifting from letting anyone outsource full-stack app development to building next-gen tech projects for big companies. If an enterprise needs machine learning and vision, data visualization, blockchain, React or Swift work done and doesn’t want to hire full-time employees, Gigster assembles a squad of freelancers and guarantees the work at a fixed price.
With software eating everything, talent in high demand and tech rock stars seeking flexible schedules, Gigster is at the intersection of several massive trends. That’s why Redpoint is leading Gigster’s $20 million Series B joined by previous investor Andreessen Horowitz, and basketball legend Michael Jordan making one of his first tech investments. That brings the Gigster rocketship to $32.5 million in total funding just two years after launch.
“Since the invention of computers, new technologies have made programming languages exponentially higher level,” Gigster co-founder Roger Dickey tells me. “These shifts, combined with the ‘future of work’ accelerants such as freelancing and AI, have changed software engineering dramatically and will continue to do so.”
Freelance-fueled rocketship
When Gigster raised its 2016 Series A, it had just three enterprise clients. Since then it’s scaled up to more than 40, with project size up 10X and revenue up 3.5X to the double-digit millions per year. That’s because enterprises can afford to shell out the big bucks for high-quality development. When budgets are tight with small-to-medium sized businesses, “we’re able to do a good job for the client, but not always as good as the client wants. It’s a bit of a mismatch,” co-founder Roger Dickey explains. “With enterprises, our satisfaction has been off the charts.” Revenue is up 2.5X year-over-year.
Gigster works with more than 1,000 top-of-the-line freelancers sourced from Stanford, MIT, Facebook and Google. They can earn bonuses through the Gigster Fund that pays freelancers part of the returns if projects it invests in successfully exit.
Gigster claims to have 93 percent client satisfaction, with 94 percent of projects within budget and 96 percent of milestones hit on schedule. Clients include Pepsi, Wyndam Hotels and MasterCard, as well as eBay, Square and OpenTable. They could struggle to recruit, or let Gigster take care of it. The startup plans to triple in size by hiring 120 more employees with the new funding.
At its core, Gigster is fusing teams of freelancers with advanced project management tools…