Crew Raises $10 Million for Curated Designer and Developer Platform

July 15, 2015

Crew, a curated platform connecting designers and developers with vetted clients that need website, mobile app, or other design work done, has announced the closing of a $10 million funding round.

This funding has been raised on the back of a business that has doubled twice in the last year and now facilitates over $1.5 million in new projects every month.

The round for the Founder Fuel grad was led by Accomplice (formerly Atlas Venture) and included investments from iNovia Capital, Real Ventures, Boldstart Venture Capital, BDC Capital, AngelList, Launch Capital, and LDV Capital.

This investment brings Crew’s total funding to date to $14 million and the Canadian company says it will be used to grow Crew’s team and accelerate product development.

Crew was founded in 2013. The company believed the process for sourcing, project managing, and delivering work could be improved. They believed a more curated environment was needed to match world-class talent with high quality projects.

Crew’s web-based platform screens both projects and professionals before being accepted to the site. Half the projects posted on Crew are accepted along with the top five percent of the designers and developers that apply. Crew also gives freelancers the opportunity to book consistent, high quality work and ensures each project will be done right by handling everything from idea to launch including: real-time budget estimates, built-in legal protection, step-by-step project management, and guaranteed payment and delivery.

Since Crew was founded two years ago, more than $18 million of contracts have been posted on the platform, half of which has come in the last six months. Some freelancers on Crew have made more than $140,000 in the last year solely from work done on Crew.

“Traditional processes today have been largely based on pitting professionals against one another, so price becomes the main factor for who wins a project, which drives down quality,” said Mikael Cho, founder and CEO of Crew.

Ryan Moore of Accomplice and Stephanie Liverani, a cofounder, will join Cho and John Stokes of Real Ventures on Crew’s board.