oDesk Challenge gives startups a staffing kickstart
oDesk, a site that helps companies recruit and coordinate online workers, has launched the oDesk Challenge, a program to help young startups piece together teams of staffers quickly and efficiently. It is promoting it today at TechCrunch50, a conference in San Francisco.
The first 20 venture-backed startups to upload their job openings to oDesk will win free, premium services from the company — making it more of a challenge for oDesk than anyone else. Account managers… Continue Reading
Report from AlwaysOn Venture Summit: We’re not dead yet!
About 500 people converged this week on the AlwaysOn Venture Summit West at the luxurious Ritz Carlton hotel in Half Moon Bay, Calif. Apparently shell-shocked investors, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs still want to commiserate and await the upturn in a group setting.
The conference itself is a kind of barometer for the economic downturn and what its impact will be for Silicon Valley. After sitting through the survivor tales for a day and a half, I… Continue Reading
ODesk raises $15M to manage remote employees
Updated
Outsourcing technology startup oDesk has raised a $15 million third round of funding led by DAG Ventures.
Menlo Park, Calif.-based oDesk allows companies to hire technology “providers” like programmers and web designers, and it provides companies with the technology to monitor those remote employees. Chief executive Gary Swart says the need for such a site is growing, as the number of companies looking to outsource some tech work and the number of workers tempted by the… Continue Reading
oConomy offers an easy way to see outsourcing statistics
Online outsourcing marketplace oDesk has launched a new feature called oConomy, where you can browse through global job statistics that are both hopelessly unscientific and endlessly fascinating.
We reported on oDesk in 2006, when the Menlo Park start-up raised a $10 million second round of funding. Basically, the site allows companies to hire technology “providers” such as programmers and web designers, and to monitor them through tools like screen shots, keystroke tracking and photos of the… Continue Reading
oDesk, marketplace for developers, raises $8 million
oDesk is a start-up that provides a marketplace for companies to hire developers online and then keep near unprecedented control over them remotely.
The Palo Alto company has just raised $8 million more in venture capital.
Benchmark Capital, a Silicon Valley firm known for its backing of auction site eBay, led the round. Bechmark has now invested in numerous marketplaces, including LogoWorks, eBags and Ingenio.
oDesk has some momentum, with revenues growing at 10 to 15 percent a… Continue Reading