Upwork, formerly Elance-oDesk, is a global freelancing platform where businesses and independent professionals connect and collaborate remotely.
In 2015, Elance-oDesk was rebranded as Upwork. It is based in Santa Clara and San Francisco, California. The full name is Upwork Global Inc.
Upwork has twelve million registered freelancers and five million registered clients. Three million jobs are posted annually, worth a total of US$1 billion, making it the largest freelancer marketplace in the world.
Upwork was formed 18 months after Elance and oDesk announced their merger on December 18, 2013 to create Elance-oDesk.
Elance was founded in 1998 by MIT graduate, Beerud Sheth, and Wall Street veteran, Srini Anumolu in a two-bedroom apartment in Jersey City.
oDesk was founded in 2003 by two friends, Odysseas Tsatalos and Stratis Karamanlakis who wanted to work together even though one of them was in the U.S., and the other was in Greece. They created oDesk to allow them to do it.