Women-led Triangle startup that finds work for freelancers gets boost from investors
A Triangle startup that launched earlier this year as a marketplace for female freelancers has received its first injection of cash from investors, as the company looks to expand the number of people using its services.
Allobee, which until recently was operating under the name MOMentum Marketplace, said last week that it received a $500,000 seed investment from a mix of angel investors and an investment firm.
Stargazer Ventures, a firm out of Portland, Oregon, that invests in underrepresented founders, led the fundraising effort.
The women-led company runs a central marketplace that connects those looking to hire freelancers with people looking for flexible work. Allobee vets the skills of the freelancers that use its site, so that business owners know they are getting a capable worker.
And the platform’s algorithm is designed to find the best matches for the freelancers.
The site launched a beta version of its marketplace earlier this year, with thousands of users. It has received a boost from the number of people looking for more work during the pandemic, especially from mothers that are having to take care of children at home.
Audio editing, web development and bookkeeping are skill sets that have been in demand on the platform this year, the company said.
The company began out of its CEO Brooke Markevicius’ own experience in the workforce.
Markevicius had worked at fast-paced startups for years, but when she decided to have children, she didn’t feel like the places she worked were compatible with motherhood.
Markevicius said she left to do freelance work, but realized it could be difficult connecting with small businesses that might need work.
When she moved from Seattle to Durham in 2019, she began to work on Allobee to solve that problem.
The focus on enabling mothers to find more flexible work got the attention of investors.
“There are so many intelligent women who had full-time careers in the past,” Silvia Aguirre, a local entrepreneur and Allobee investor, said in a statement, “then they had to raise children and could not be 100 percent in the workforce.”
Markevicius said she was excited to take in the investment because of the disparities that exist in funding between male- and female-funded startups.
In fact, funding for female-led startups fell significantly last year — declining 27% compared to 2019, according to the venture-capital tracker Crunchbase.
However, it isn’t just women using its platform, said Markevicius.
After it re-branded from MOMentum to Allobee, more men began finding the site and using it too.
That’s perfectly fine for Markevicius, who said she wants the site as inclusive as possible.
The company plans to use the money to boost its marketing and bring on a machine learning doctoral student form N.C. State University.
Markevicius said Allobee is working on several artificially intelligent tweaks to its algorithm that matches freelancers with small businesses.
“It’s all about finding people a business can trust, and that is a good fit for the worker,” she said.
This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. Learn more; go to bit.ly/newsinnovate
This story was originally published January 11, 2021 at 8:00 AM.
