99designs, the largest online graphic design marketplace in the world, today announced it has acquired Berlin-based, Grupo Intercom financed company 12designer, the leading creative design marketplace in Germany and the second largest in Europe after 99designs. The acquisition is 99designs’ first and signals the company’s ongoing focus on international expansion via localization following its $35 million Series A investment led by Accel Partners last year.
Germany is 99design’s number one non-English language market, its fifth largest overall and one of its fastest growing. Despite minimal marketing in Germany and other European countries, European small businesses and startups have accounted for approximately 15 percent of the 155,000 graphic design contests held on 99designs’ English-language site to date. The 12designer acquisition will allow 99designs to better meet the needs of European customers by providing support in their own languages and time zones.
“We’re very excited to welcome 12designer Founder and CEO Eva Missling and her talented team into the 99designs family. We believe their deep regional marketplace expertise and multi-lingual capabilities will prove instrumental in accelerating our delivery of truly localized world-class design services to European businesses and designers,” said 99designs CEO Patrick Llewellyn. “This acquisition enables us to build significantly on our existing momentum and resources in Europe and gives us an ideally situated base in Berlin. As the tech startup and design hub of Europe, there is no better place from which to implement our aggressive regional growth plans.”
In conjunction with the announcement, 99designs has named Missling the company’s new General Manager of Europe. She will be tasked with optimizing localization of 99designs services for European markets, accelerating growth in Germany and across Europe, and building a 99designs team in Berlin. She will also continue to oversee 12designer, which boasts a community of more than 20,000 designers interacting with customers in German, French, Spanish, Italian and English. 12designer will continue to operate as a stand-alone site in the near term.
“The 12designer team is eager to join 99designs and further our shared vision of connecting businesses seeking affordable, high-quality design services with skilled designers,” said Missling. “The combination of 99designs’ global reach and resources, 12designers’ regional experience, and the enormous multilingual talent pool here in Berlin will be a win for Europe’s small business owners and designers alike.”
Financial terms of the deal are not being publicly disclosed.
About 99designs
99designs is the world's largest online graphic design marketplace, connecting businesses
looking for design work with more than 175,000 graphic designers from 192 countries
around the world. Businesses can source graphic design work quickly and affordably by
launching design contests to the community, working 1-on-1 with individual designers,
or purchasing design templates from 99designs' readymade store. The company was co-
founded by serial entrepreneurs Mark Harbottle and Matt Mickiewicz (SitePoint, Flippa), and
is backed by Accel Partners and angel investors Michael Dearing (eBay, Harrison Metal),
Dave Goldberg (Survey Monkey), Stewart Butterfield (Flickr, Tiny Speck) and Anthony
Casalena (Squarespace). To learn more about 99designs, including where the company is
hiring, visit www.99designs.com.
About 12designer
12designer, the largest German marketplace for crowdsourced creative design services,
enables businesses to source custom logo design, print design, website design, slogans,
naming services, and other creative work from a community of more than 20,000
professional creatives throughout Europe. Berlin-based 12designer was founded by Eva
Missling together with Grupo Intercom and offers services in German, Spanish, French,
Italian and English.
Media contact (Worldwide):
Lauren Gard
510-246-1366
lauren.gard@99designs.com
Media contact (Australia):
Caroline Shawyer
+61 (0) 401 496 334
caroline@prgroup.com.au