Freelancer.com Acquires LimeExchange.com

While the big name startups in the US were raking in record busting amounts [How Much Money Are the Startups Making?] a small company operating in Australia is quietly building an empire. Unlike its American counterparts, this small startup was able to do something quite extraordinary - to be profitable before investors started investing and before big name bloggers started hyping.

This points to a sordid reality, that media coverage on world startups are heavily tilted towards American companies. Yet, it would seem that it's nothing new owing to the fact that most of the most popular media channels that people (including me) read are American, think techcrunch, engadget, and lifehacker. 

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But that seems to be perfectly alright for Freelancer Australia Pty Limited which has amassed several million dollars in revenue in 2010 alone. With its headquarters in Suite 501, 35 Lime Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, this company just recently made its own presence felt with some choice acquisitions, FreeMarket.com and Limeexchange.com.

Freelancer.com Headquarters in Sydney

The strategic acquisition has increased Freelancer.com's user base by 2 million registered people. Although that number may pale in comparison to Facebook's 600 million users, these 2 million people generated over $80,000,000 from which freelancer.com has derived a steady source of income through project commissions, gold memberships, testing fees and advertising among other things.

 

From a simple job website that's like Craigslist, to a heavyweight contender, freelancer.com stands poised to become the leading outsourcing platform in the world today after the likes of oDesk and eLance.

With capital infusion from investment group Startive Capital, freelancer.com only has to give its user base ample reason to stay given that similar startups offer little to no fees. Some freelancers are beginning to grow weary of freelancer.com's increasing fees and other revenue generation methods that often target the user.

Some have even resorted to gaming the popular freelance site, by means of violating the site's terms of use and conditions by contacting freelancer's directly.

Despite these problems, things are looking up for the Australian online behemoth.