Expert 360, Australia’s online marketplace for consultants, gets $3M boost in series A round

Australian startup Expert 360 has raised AU$4.1 million (US$3 million) in a series A investment round led by venture capital firm Frontier Ventures. Investors in the round include Rampersand (more companies should have “ampersand” as part of their name), an investment and support firm for technology startups based in Australia, existing shareholders, and individual investors such as former managing director for Australian investment bank Macquarie, Allan Moss AO. Dmitry Alimov, founder of Frontier Ventures, will join Expert 360’s board of directors as part of the deal.

“Expert360 is a leading marketplace for online consulting services with potential to disrupt a massive global industry,” Alimov said in a statement. “We are very impressed by the company’s team, its speed of execution, product quality, and outstanding growth trajectory. We know online service marketplaces and we’re excited to back this one.”

Founded in June 2013, Expert 360 is an online consultant services marketplace. Its founders, Bridget Loudon and Emily Yue, are consultant veterans with stints at international consulting firm Bain & Company, so they know their beat. The idea is similar to Upwork, where freelancers offer their services to customers through the site. Consultants can sign up to Expert 360’s website and get contacted by companies in need of their expertise. This way, even small enterprises can have access to consulting services they might not have been able to afford otherwise.

“In the past, top consulting skills have been limited to large firms and large enterprise, owing to the large cost-base associated with delivering these services,” Loudon tells Tech in Asia. “This has removed the opportunity for other organizations to tap into specialized expertise to assist in growing their business.” According to the co-founder, smaller businesses can engage experienced consultants for project-based work even for $1,000.

The timing of the investment was just right to ensure the company keeps its forward momentum, according to co-founder Bridget Loudon. “Even though Expert 360 is a cash-generative business, we were blown away by the speed of adoption,” she says. The startup claims to have exceeded its own expectations during its first full year of operation in 2014. “With that volume, we need to make sure that we’re moving extremely quickly to build our platform, our process and our team,” Loudon says. “The series A was timed to make sure we keep [our] big momentum.”

In fact, Loudon points out that it’s important the momentum doesn’t throw the company off course. “We need to make sure that supply matches demand, and that is a very precarious balancing act that we work hard to [maintain],” she says.

According to the startup, 4800 consultants are currently offering their services on its platform to more than 800 users. 10 percent of Expert 360’s revenues come from the US. It’s also reporting a month-on-month volume and revenue growth of around 20 percent.

Expert 360’s approach is an interesting application of the online freelance services model to a very particular set of services. The company lists US-based startups Hourly Nerd, Sparehire, and Skillbridge as its competition. All of them provide access to business and consulting experts on a freelance basis. Expert 360’s edge lies in the experience of the consultants available on its platform, its ability to keep its community coming back, and its “world-class investor and advisory board,” according to Loudon.

The investment is the second deal for Frontier Ventures in the Asia-Pacific region, after participating in Singaporean restaurant booking service Chope’s series C funding round. It has previously backed online marketplaces such as Russia’s Upwork-like Profi.