Fully remote startup, Superside, which operates a network of freelance creatives that are tapped by companies to work on logos, display ads, packaging, bigger marketing campaigns, and other design-based efforts, has picked up $30 million, money that it will be investing in further international expansion and growing its team of people, both in-house staff and the creatives network.
Prosus Ventures and Lugard Road Capital are co-leading the round, with previous investors Slack Fund and Acequia Capital also participating. Investors and the company would not confirm but I understand from sources valuation to be just over $400 million.
The round is the first sizable funding that Oslo-based, but very distributed, Superside has raised — it was founded as Konsus back in 2015 and had picked up only $5.5 million up to now — and it comes on the heels of some impressive growth in its nearly-bootstrapped state.
Headquartered in Palo Alto, Superside provides creative and design services to brands, enabling fast turnaround, high-quality design, at scale. Offering a unique subscription model, they connect companies with a dedicated team of vetted designers and project managers to provide quality design work, faster and more cost-effectively than traditional creative agencies and at a far superior quality than freelance marketplaces. Companies are offered subscription pricing plans to ensure project flexibility, along with a range of capabilities – from illustration and motion design to UI design and creative concepting and can kickstart their projects in a matter of hours.
Fredrik Thomassen, Superside’s Cofounder and CEO, commented: “We have spent the last few years building a company with the top creatives from over 50 countries. Our creative team members are highly skilled, award-winning, proven designers and creatives in their local markets and are now doing amazing work with our customers globally. In return, our customers get access to the world’s best creative talent, with a diverse and truly global take on brand, creative, and design across a number of disciplines. In a world where brands are vying for real distinction, we are providing an innovative approach that is desperately needed.”
Superside has seen significant growth in the last few years, working with reputable brands, including Amazon, Salesforce, and Cisco, who have consistently praised Superside’s fast turnaround times, creative diversity, high-quality content, and impressive access to global top talent.
The global adoption of digital marketing has resulted in an explosion of digital content. Spend on digital marketing is expected to reach $455 billion (R7 363 460 650 000,00) in 2021 with 30-60% going towards content. The portion spent on content creation will continue to rise as spending shifts further to social media platforms.
The company also has plans to hire close to a hundred engineers in the next 12 months to further build out its design operations platform.
Currently, 20% of our team members reside in South Africa and a big portion of our funding will be used to hire even more creatives, sales, and customer success professionals from the top companies and agencies in South Africa to fuel our worldwide growth.
Fredrik Thomassen, co-founder & CEO of Superside
