It is time for the consolidation of the freelance market industry. The French start-up Paint has acquired comatch, a marketplace focused on consultants and industry experts. comatch started in Germany, which means that Paint the German market is also being doubled with this acquisition.
Paint It started as a marketplace that connects freelance developers, designers, and other technical workers with companies looking for talent. The startup has raised quite a bit of money and has managed to attract 340.000 freelancers in various European countries.
Originally limited to the French market, Paint it has expanded to Germany, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland in recent years. More than 40.000 companies have used Paint to find a freelancer or several freelancers.
Clients include Unilever, Lufthansa, Bosch, BlaBlaCar, L'Oréal and Allianz. As can be seen, many large companies have used Paint in some process.
Paint focuses exclusively on highly skilled freelance jobs that can fill a void when a new project comes along. In addition to the developers, Paint now it also offers opportunities for marketing and communications professionals, graphic designers and others.
Use a platform like Paint It can be particularly useful when you're starting out as a freelancer and don't have a large network of potential clients. Paint It also helps take care of administrative paperwork. Freelancers can charge their clients directly through Paint and, of course, Paint takes a small commission.
As for the comatch, the company follows roughly the same model, but with a specific focus on management consultants and industry experts. Paint it has not specifically targeted business consultants so far. So the company is entering a new vertical.
"comatch is a benchmark in the field of business consulting markets. Shares the 'community first' approach of PaintPlacing our talents at the center of product and business for our vision of the future of work, we look forward and excited to bringing our two worlds of highly-skilled freelancers together.” said Vincent Huguet, co-founder and CEO of Paint.
Paint it also wants to become the market for independent work in Europe. comatch it has attracted 15.000 freelancers in nine markets and the two companies work with 80% of listed companies on the CAC 40 and DAX 40. comatch represents an interesting opportunity for external growth.
After this acquisition, Paint has an ambitious goal. By 2024, the company expects to generate €1.000bn in turnover and Malt will hire a further 150 internal employees by the end of 2022.
