Upwork Inc.

What does Upwork own?

Upwork owns the Upwork freelance marketplace and the enterprise subsidiary Lifted, formed in 2025 through the acquisitions of Bubty and Ascen. It operates primarily under the single Upwork brand.

Is Upwork publicly traded?

Yes. Upwork trades on Nasdaq under the ticker UPWK. It went public in October 2018.

Who founded Upwork?

Upwork was formed in 2015 by merging Elance and oDesk. Elance was founded in 1998 by Beerud Sheth, Srini Anumolu and Sanjay Noronha; oDesk was founded in 2003 by Odysseas Tsatalos and Stratis Karamanlakis.

Where is Upwork headquartered?

Upwork is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, in Silicon Valley. It operates with a distributed workforce and employees across the US and internationally.

Who owns Upwork?

Upwork is a widely held public company with no controlling shareholder. Institutional investors hold most shares, and Hayden Brown serves as president and CEO.

What is Upwork's revenue?

Upwork reported approximately $770 million in revenue for fiscal 2024. Revenue comes from marketplace fees on transactions, enterprise services, and premium features.

How does Upwork make money?

Upwork takes a service fee on freelancer billings, charges clients payment processing and contract fees, and sells enterprise services, premium memberships and promoted listings.

Upwork traces to two predecessor companies. Beerud Sheth, Srini Anumolu and Sanjay Noronha founded Elance in 1998 in New Jersey as one of the first online freelance marketplaces. Odysseas Tsatalos and Stratis Karamanlakis founded oDesk in 2003 in Silicon Valley, building a competing platform with a stronger emphasis on remote work tracking and hourly contracts.

The two platforms competed for over a decade before merging in 2015 under the Elance-oDesk name, which rebranded to Upwork later that year. The combined company consolidated the freelance market's largest client and freelancer bases and went public on Nasdaq in October 2018 under the ticker UPWK.

Hayden Brown, who joined in 2011, became CEO in 2020 as the pandemic drove a surge in remote work adoption that dramatically expanded the platform's usage. The company has since focused on enterprise clients through its Upwork Enterprise suite, AI-powered matching tools, and a 2025 initiative launching Lifted, a wholly owned enterprise subsidiary created through the acquisitions of Bubty and Ascen to serve large-company contingent workforce needs.

Upwork faces the recurring criticisms of the gig economy model: debates over worker classification, freelance fee structures, and the economic security of platform workers. Freelancers periodically protest fee changes and account suspension practices.

The company operates in the broader regulatory debate over whether gig workers should be classified as employees or independent contractors, though Upwork's model of B2B-style professional services has attracted less scrutiny than ride-share or delivery platforms. It has also faced criticism over scam job postings and freelancer verification, which it addresses through platform controls.