Crowdsourcing giant 99designs acquires LogoChef, continues global expansion

[Disclosure: I used 99designs for the cover of my novel, No Other Gods.]

99designs, which is already the world’s largest graphic design marketplace, announced today that it has acquired Brazilian competitor LogoChef and has launched a Portuguese-language version of its site targeted at Brazilians.

Clearly, this crowdsourcing success story wants to go global.

“We’re excited to be taking the next step in our globalization strategy with the acquisition of LogoChef,” 99designs president and CEO Patrick Llewellyn said in a statement. “With small businesses and startups driving 99 percent of Brazil’s economy, we have an extraordinary opportunity to connect a new group of our core customers with designers there and around the world.”

99designs expanded into Europe last year with the acquisition of the Berlin-based 12Designer and localized versions of its site in Germany, France, Italy, Spain. Just recently, the company launched local sites for Mexico, Argentina, Columbia, and Chile as well as the Netherlands and Singapore.

The expansion and purchases are fueled by its $35 million series A funding round in April 2011.

Terms of the acquisition were not released, but LogoChef cofounder Dan Strougo will become 99designs’ country manager for Brazil, working out of a Rio de Janeiro office.

So far 99designs has held more than 235,000 graphic design contests, each of which attract 30-100 submissions from the site’s community of 245,000 artists. My cover design contest, for example, garnered 91 cover art submissions.

To date, 99designs has paid out $60 million to artists around the globe.