Freelancer. Com buys another it job site, vworker (aka rentacoder. Com), for a price in the millions | techcrunch

Freelancer.com, the job outsourcing and freelance IT worker marketplace, has made another acquisition: it has bought vWorker, a job site for freelance coders and other tech professionals.

Terms of the deal have not been disclosed but TechCrunch has heard from a source that it is in the region of millions of dollars. vWorker was formerly known as RentACoder, and is said to be

the fourth-biggest IT recruitment marketplace of its kind globally, with 2.5 million enterprise and professional users from around the world, and altogether processing $139 million from 1.3

million projects. The deal is a sign of ongoing consolidation in the area of online freelance IT recruitment: it follows another acquisition made in July 2012, when Freelancer.com bought the

world’s fifth-largest IT marketplace, Scriptlance. Together with vWorker, Freelancer.com now has 6.6 million IT and tech professionals on its books globally covering some 600 categories of

IT-related work. Freelancer says this makes it the world’s biggest IT outsourcing site for freelancers. Other competitors in the space include eLance and ODesk. Freelancer.com lets companies

post jobs to freelancers, but, in a hat tip to the big trend these days for crowdsourcing, it also has structured its site to let individual workers collaborate together on projects.

Freelancer.com says the average job on the site is $200 or less — an interesting price point, considering how hard and expensive it can be these days to hire full-time engineers and other IT

staff. The deal will give Freelancer.com — originally founded in Australia by Matt Barrie, who still runs the company — further inroads into the U.S., with vWorker headquartered in Tampa,

Florida. While vWorker focused mainly on programming and other IT work when it first opened for business in 2001, in 2010 it expanded into other areas of tech business, such as graphic

design. Hence, the rebranding to vWorker, which the company says stands for “virtual worker.” Originally focusing on programming and IT-based work, in 2010 the site expanded to include a

wide selection of work categories including graphic design, writing and more. To reflect this expansion, the company changed its name to vWorker – short for _“virtual worker”_. In a post

announcing the news, Freelancer.com says that existing people on vWorker’s books will be automatically transitioned to Freelancer.com, effective immediately. “We will transfer over your

account balances, user profiles, reputation history, messages, employer escrow payments, active projects and past projects, so rest assured that it will be business as usual once you arrive

on our platform,” it says. This will also mean a lot more competition for existing people in the Freelancer.com pool. Release below. > FREELANCER.COM ACQUIRES VWORKER (FORMERLY 

RENTACODER.COM) >  > FREELANCER.COM ACQUIRES THE WORLD’S FOURTH LARGEST OUTSOURCING > MARKETPLACE BY VOLUME AND SECOND LARGEST BY USERS WITH 2.5 MILLION > USERS, 1.3 MILLION 

PROJECTS AND US$139 MILLION IN TURNOVER TO DATE. >  > LONDON: NOVEMBER 19TH, 2012 – Freelancer.com, the world’s > largest freelancing marketplace, today announced the acquisition of

> vWorker, the fourth largest marketplace globally. >  > Headquartered in Tampa, Florida, vWorker has over 2.5 million > enterprise and professional users from around the world,

 who have > been paid over US$139 million through the site from 1.3 million > projects. Founded by Ian Ippolito in 2001 originally as _Rent a > Coder_, the marketplace was one of 

the earliest companies of its > kind in the world. It rapidly developed an exceptional reputation > for attracting quality programmers and grew at an astonishing pace. > From 2007 

to 2010 _RentaCoder.com_ was named by Inc. magazine as one > of the 5000 fastest growing private companies in the USA. In 2010, > Entrepreneur Magazine called Rent A Coder “one of the 

hundred > smartest, most innovative, hands-down brilliant companies on our > radar”. >  > Originally focusing on programming and IT-based work, in 2010 the > site expanded to 

include a wide selection of work categories > including graphic design, writing and more. To reflect this > expansion, the company changed its name to vWorker – short for > 

_“virtual worker”_. >  > A true innovator in the space, vWorker was the first company to > introduce the _trialsourcing_ model and one of the first innovators > in _crowdsourcing

 _and_ time tracking _technology_. _ >  > With a huge pool of 2.5 million professionals spanning the globe, > the acquisition of vWorker represents a massive boost to > 

Freelancer.com’s already market-leading user-base of 4.4 million > professionals. This undisputedly affirms Freelancer.com as the > largest marketplace globally with 6.6 million users,

 greater than > the combined user population of its two nearest competitors. > Combined with Freelancer’s 2.7 million projects to date, the > marketplaces have completed 4 million 

projects as the largest online > freelance economy in the world by far. >  > “I am immensely pleased to announce the acquisition of vWorker, > which has the absolute best 

reputation in the industry for sourcing > the finest programmers”, said Matt Barrie, Chief Executive of > Freelancer.com, “Through Ian’s incredible leadership over the > last 12 

years, vWorker was a pioneer in the development of many > technologies and processes that the industry today takes for > granted.”. >  > Ian Ippolito, Chief Executive and Founder

 of Exhedra Solutions, Inc. > (owner of vWorker), said “We’re elated to be joining forces with > the global leader in the space. Our highly skilled freelancers will > now be able to

 increase their earnings potential by accessing more > projects, and our employers will be able to tap into a larger and > more diversified skill base to get things done.”. >  > 

Today, small businesses are able to hire freelancers for projects in > 600 skill categories which today are in areas as mainstream as > Website Design, Graphic Design, Copywriting and 

SEO; but are also as > diverse as Astrophysics, Aerospace Engineering, Genetic Engineering, > Biotechnology, Manufacturing and Industrial Design. >  > Freelancer.com is also the 

global leader in web traffic for the > industry, currently ranking at #412, according to Alexa. Freelancer > enjoys a cult following in some countries, regularly ranking in the > 

top 20, 50 or 100 websites in countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan > and India, where freelancing is the vanguard of an economic > revolution sweeping the developing world as the 

Internet connects > the rest of the world’s population together. Freelancer today has > 22 regional marketplaces, allowing transactions in 15 currencies and > is available in 10 

languages, with a 24x7x365 support team that > speaks English, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Filipino and > Indonesian. >  > Freelancer.com has aggressively consolidated the 

online outsourcing > industry since May 2009 when the company was started by Australian > and BRW Entrepreneur of the Year Matt Barrie. The company’s > acquisition of vWorker 

(United States), adds to a list that includes > GetAFreelancer (Sweden), Scriptlance (Canada), LimeExchange (United > States), Freelancer.co.uk (United Kingdom), Freelancer.de Booking

> Center (Germany), Freelancer.com.au (Australia) and Freelancer Hong > Kong (China), together with the Freemarket.com virtual content > marketplace (United States) and the 

Webmaster Talk (United States) > forums. >  > The terms of the acquisition were undisclosed. >  > For more details, please go to http://www.freelancer.com ABOUT FREELANCER

Webby award-winning Freelancer.com is the largest outsourcing and crowdsourcing marketplace in the world. Through Freelancer.com, entrepreneurs and businesses connect with 6.6 million

professionals from all over the world. Employers can hire freelancers in areas such as software, writing, data entry and design, right through to engineering and the sciences, sales &

marketing and accounting & legal services. The average job is under US$200, making Freelancer.com extremely cost effective for small businesses, which often need a wide variety of jobs

to be done, but cannot justify the expense of hiring full time.