Upwork Inc.
Traded as
IndustryFreelance marketplace
Founded
  • 1999 (age 27) (as Elance)
  • 2003 (age 23) (as oDesk)
  • 2013 (age 13) (as Elance-oDesk)
  • 2015 (age 11) (as Upwork)
Founder
  • Bernard Sheth
  • Srini Anumolu
  • Sanjay Noronha
  • Odysseas Tsatalos
  • Stratis Karamanlakis
ChairmanThomas Layton
HeadquartersPalo Alto, California, San Francisco, California U.S.
Area servedWorldwide
CeoHayden Brown
Key peopleHayden Brown (CEO)
Thomas Layton (chairman)
RevenueUS$788 million (2025)[1]
Net incomeUS$115 million (2025)[1]
AssetsUS$1.21 billion (2024)[1]
EquityUS$575 million (2024)[1]
RegistrationRequired

Upwork Inc. (formerly Elance-oDesk) is an American freelancing platform headquartered in Palo Alto and San Francisco, California.[2] The company was formed in 2013 as Elance-oDesk after the merger of Elance Inc. and oDesk Corp. The merged company was subsequently rebranded as Upwork in 2015.[3]

History

Elance was founded in 1998 by MIT graduate Bernard Sheth and Wall Street veteran Srini Anumolu in Jersey City.[4] In December 1999, the company's 22 employees relocated to Sunnyvale, in California's Silicon Valley. Elance's first product was the Elance Small Business Marketplace.[5]

oDesk was founded in 2003 by two friends, Odysseas Tsatalos and Stratis Karamanlakis, who walked to work together even though one of them was in the U.S. and the other was in Greece.[6][7] Originally created as a staffing firm, oDesk eventually became an online marketplace that allowed registered users to find, hire, and collaborate with remote workers.[8]

In 2009, a hacker breached Elance and obtained the personal details of more than 1.3 million registered users including names, addresses, passwords, and associated email account data.[9]

Elance and oDesk announced their merger on December 18, 2013, to create Elance-oDesk.[10] In 2015, the new company was rebranded as Upwork, which coincided with an upgrade of the oDesk platform under the same name. The newly named Upwork also planned to phase out the Elance platform within a couple of years.[11]

The company was listed on the Inc. 5000 list from 2009 to 2014 and filed for an initial public offering on October 3, 2018.[12][13]

In January 2020, Hayden Brown was appointed CEO of Upwork.[14]

In March 2022, Upwork was named to Time's list of TIME100 Most Influential Companies of 2022.[15]

On March 7, 2022, Upwork started suspending operations for freelancers and clients in Russia and Belarus as a sanction following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.[16]

In 2023, job postings related to AI became the fastest growing category on the Upwork platform and the company created an AI services hub to address the increasing activity.[17] As part of the services hub, Upwork partnered with OpenAI on a program that connected businesses with freelancers who were experienced in AI applications like ChatGPT.[18]

In 2024, the company introduced an AI assistant called Uma. The system was built on large language models and trained with platform data to assist with proposal writing and matching client jobs with freelancers.[19]

Beginning in 2023, Upwork made a series of acquisitions and integrated the acquired technology into its AI tools.[20] The acquisitions included an AI video conferencing platform called Headroom in 2023; a search-as-service company called ObjectiveAI in 2024; and a workforce management company called Bubty in 2025.[20] In 2025, Upwork created a subsidiary to provide services to enterprise clients called Lifted, which integrates Bubty and Ascen, [20] a compliance and EOR company acquired in 2025.[21]

On May 7, 2026, Upwork announced their second layoff of 25% of their workforce within two years.[22][23]

Service and business model

Businesses and individuals can connect through this platform to conduct business. Clients post a description of their job and a price range they are willing to pay for a freelancer to complete it. The client may invite specific freelancers to apply for their jobs, or post the job for any freelancer who is interested to apply. Once the client has chosen who they want to complete the job, they hire that freelancer by sending a contract with set hours, pay rate, and a deadline for the work to be completed.[24] Freelancers are also required to purchase "connects" in order to be able to bid for jobs.[25]

Size, scope, and changes

In March 2017, Upwork reported 14 million users in 180 countries with US$1 billion in annual freelancer billings.[26][27]

In 2020, the company purged 1.8 million freelancers.[28][29] In a 2019 call with investors Upwork CEO, Hayden Brown, said that Upwork would be focusing more on serving the needs of Fortune 500 companies rather than smaller companies just looking for a quick job with a single gig worker. Brown also spoke of a "skill gap" between what companies were looking for and what they were getting. Many of the freelancers purged were rated as "less skilled" or had lower rankings on the platform.[30]

In October 2020, Upwork launched a new feature called "Project Catalog" that allows freelancers and agencies to offer pre-scoped services at fixed prices, similar to the Fiverr marketplace.[31]

References

  1. ^ "2025 Annual Report". Upwork corp. February 9, 2026.
  2. ^ Council, Stephen (24 October 2024). "Bay Area tech company Upwork announces $28M profit, slashes staff by 21%". SF Gate. Retrieved 29 April 2026.
  3. ^ Lunden, Ingrid (May 5, 2015). "Elance-oDesk Rebrands As Upwork, Debuts Slack-Like Chat Platform". TechCrunch. Retrieved May 17, 2016.
  4. ^ bio, See full. "eLance founder indicted on fraud charges". CNET. Retrieved 2026-04-21.
  5. ^ Thomas W. Malone & Robert J. Laubacher. "The Dawn of the E-Lance Economy". Harvard Business Review. Archived from the original on 2012-01-31. Retrieved 2010-12-25.
  6. ^ "California Secretary of State. Corporate filing date 1/27/2003". Archived from the original on 15 March 2015. Retrieved 22 June 2014.
  7. ^ "The story behind launching oDesk - with Gary Swart - Mixergy". Mixergy. 19 March 2014. Retrieved 2017-07-28.
  8. ^ "Elance-oDesk unveils platform, name". www2.staffingindustry.com. Retrieved 2023-05-22.
  9. ^ Ashok, India. "Elance data breach: Hacker leaks 1.3 million accounts from staffing platform". International Business Times
  10. ^ Levy, Ari (December 19, 2013). "Elance Merges With oDesk to Boost Service for Freelancers". Bloomberg Technology. Retrieved January 18, 2014.
  11. ^ "oDesk becomes Upwork, but what about Elance?". news.smallbusinesstrends.com. 5 May 2015. Retrieved 6 May 2015.
  12. ^ "Upwork Just Made a Surprising Decision That Will Change Everything For Freelancers". Inc.com. 2018-07-25. Retrieved 2018-07-25.
  13. ^ Jiang, Ethel (3 October 2018). "Upwork — the largest freelancers' network — soars 50% in trading debut". Markets Insider. Archived from the original on October 3, 2018. Retrieved 3 October 2018.
  14. ^ Stoller, Kristin (9 November 2020). "How Upwork's First Female CEO Is Pivoting The Freelancing Business For A Remote World". Forbes. Retrieved 1 November 2025.
  15. ^ Van Houten, Alison (March 30, 2022). "TIME100 Most Influential Companies of 2022 - Upwork". TIME. Retrieved August 2, 2022.
  16. ^ "A Letter From Our CEO | Upwork"
  17. ^ Greenberg, Karl (11 July 2023). "Upwork Launches New Generative AI Tools and Services Hub". Tech Republic. Retrieved 28 October 2025.
  18. ^ Revell, Eric (31 July 2023). "OpenAI, Upwork partner to help companies hire AI specialists". FOX Business. Retrieved 30 October 2025.
  19. ^ Kherani, Sadiya (17 October 2024). "Upwork unveils new capabilities for its Uma AI platform". Fast Company. Retrieved 29 October 2025.
  20. ^ Noto, Grace (19 August 2025). "Upwork leans on AI deals for greater 'optionality,' CFO says". CFO Dive. Retrieved 1 November 2025.
  21. ^ Szkutak, Rebecca (6 August 2025). "Upwork is buying its way into corporate staffing beyond freelancers". Retrieved 15 November 2025.
  22. ^ "Jobs data live updates: Cloudflare, Upwork add to mounting tech layoffs as April jobs report looms". Yahoo Financial. Archived 2026-05-08 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2026-05-08.
  23. ^ "A Message from Hayden Brown, Upwork CEO | Upwork". www.upwork.com. Retrieved 2026-05-08.
  24. ^ "How to use Upwork effectively to hire quality talent for business?". webdew. Retrieved 2023-05-22.
  25. ^ "Understanding and using Connects – Upwork Customer Service & Support | Upwork Help"
  26. ^ Snagajob. "Snagajob Appoints Former Upwork CEO to Board of Directors". www.prnewswire.com. Retrieved 2017-07-28.
  27. ^ "TechDay - Upwork's SVP of Marketing Explains What It Takes To Perfect An Offering That Relies On People". techdayhq.com. Retrieved 2017-07-28.
  28. ^ "Hayden Brown, Upwork Inc: Profile and Biography". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2020-09-09.
  29. ^ "1.8 million gig workers were purged from Upwork - here's why". businessofbusiness.com. March 20, 2020. Retrieved 2024-06-26.
  30. ^ Upwork. "Q4 and Full Year 2019 Prepared Remarks". investors.upwork.com. Archived from the original on October 21, 2020. Retrieved September 9, 2020.
  31. ^ "Introducing Project Catalog™". Upwork. 2020-10-27. Retrieved 2022-04-20.