Freelancer Ltd (ASX: FLN) shares have soared over 10% today, despite the S&P/ASX 200 (Index: ^AXJO) (ASX: XJO) climbing less than 0.5%.
The bounce in shares of the world's largest freelancing and crowdsourcing site by total users comes on the back of two promising ASX announcements this morning.
Third Quarter Update
Firstly, Freelancer announced its third quarter trading update and cash flow, showing a 42% increase in cash receipts from customers and positive operating cash flow for the first three quarters in its 2015 financial year.
The company also said an additional 850,000 users (totalling 16.8 million) and 450,000 projects and contests (taking the total to 8.6 million) were added to the site, representing a 39% increase in users year-over-year.
Intriguingly, Freelancer's offering received a big tick of approval, after partnering with NASA for crowdsource software and design solutions. So far, NASA has posted 23 contests, including:
- The design of smartwatch application for use by astronauts in space
- Design concepts for Disruption Tolerant Networking for deep space exploration; and
- 3D tools for Robonaut – an International Space Station assistant
Among all the awards and platform updates included in the third quarter update, one line which jumped out at me was: "About 60% of our projects now receive a bid within one minute, and all bids are ranked and surfaced in real time."
"Freelancer once again achieved exceptional results in Q3 with record receipts from customers and record projects & contests posted with an acceleration on the first half results," CEO Matt Barrie said. "FY15 will be an outstanding year."
Escrow.Com update
Shortly after announcing the quarterly results to the market, Freelancer said it had received final approvals from regulators to proceed with its investment in the e-commerce business, Escrow.com. Escrow will allow Freelancer's users to transact securely online, so is a highly complementary acquisition.
Buy, Hold or Sell?
Freelancer isn't the only technology company playing in the crowdsourcing space. However, it is making inroads to becoming a true Australian success story, and I wouldn't be willing to bet against it.
