DesignCrowd acquires US rival

Peter Dinham
Thursday, 22 December 2011 17:26

IT Industry - Market

Australian crowdsourcing website, DesignCrowd, has acquired its US-based rival, Brandstack.com for an undisclosed price, and has followed up the acquisition by launching BrandCrowd.com, which will combine the Brandstack service with the existing DesignCrowd community.

DesignCrowd, which describes itself as an online 'crowdsourcing marketplace', recently received $3m of investment funding from Starfish Ventures.

According to DesignCrowd's founder and CEO, Alec Lynch, the Brandstack acquisition combined with the DesignCrowd site will provide BrandCrowd with 'immediate market leadership.'

Lynch said the acquisition of Brandstack and the launch of BrandCrowd will further reinforce DesignCrowd's 'leadership in crowdsourced graphic design services,' with the company providing 'premium agency-quality ready-made brands and logos created by over 50,000 designers from around the world.'

"Acquiring Brandstack will help DesignCrowd do three things: achieve immediate, global market leadership in the ready-made logo design space; grow our existing business in the US, UK and Canada; and help unlock the value of our 500,000 unused designs submitted on DesignCrowd. That's why we bought it. Brandstack was the best ready-made logo marketplace. Now, BrandCrowd will be both the best and the biggest.'

Lynch said BrandCrowd will combine agency quality design, with the immediacy of the Internet. 'In 30 seconds, an entrepreneur in Australia can browse 300 premium pre-made logos from New York to New Delhi and in 30 minutes they can have a unique and world-class brand.

Explaining Brandstack'Ÿs strategic value to DesignCrowd, Lynch said 'creative ideas are rare assets - they should not go to waste - and Brandstack's model ensures they don't. It will allow us to unlock the value of our 500,000 unused designs submitted on DesignCrowd. This means every creative idea or design uploaded to DesignCrowd can lead to cash in the bank for its creator.'

DesignCrowd will integrate the Brandstack service with DesignCrowd via the new website BrandCrowd.com. Meanwhile, in the short term, the company has combined the communities and now claims 100,000 users across the two sites. Lynch says that in the New Year, the company will look at integrating the sites more closely and rolling out new innovations.