We Are Rosie (WRR), the flexible talent marketplace for the advertising and marketing world, announced it has received a growth investment from Align Capital Partners (ACP), in a deal valuing the Company at $110 million. WRR founder and CEO Stephanie Nadi Olson has retained a significant stake in the Company and will continue to lead through its next phase of growth.
In its first four years, WRR has grown its network of freelancers (whom they call “Rosies”) to more than 10,000 and added some 40 employees. It tripled its revenue in the past year and now works with more than 25 Fortune 500 brands and all six major advertising holding companies. This year alone, more than 1,200 flexible project opportunities came to We Are Rosie.
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“We’ve reached the point where it would be a disservice to We Are Rosie’s mission and vision to throttle our growth by staying bootstrapped,” said Nadi Olson, who quit her ad sales career in 2018 to start the Company. “We have dozens of Fortune 500 clients ready to embrace flexible talent and 10,000+ independent marketers excited to work in a way that gives them the life and career they deserve. This is the moment of a lifetime.”
“Align partnered with We Are Rosie because we wholeheartedly believe in their vision and unique value proposition,” said ACP Managing Partner, Rob Langley. “We’re thrilled to partner with Stephanie and her team as WRR enters its next phase of growth by further investing in its people and technology to create even more opportunity for underrepresented talent and easier access to that diverse, best-in-class talent for customers.”
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Best known for its diversity, equity and inclusion commitment, WRR’s enormous success is based on its ability to expertly match clients with best fit talent — with more than 40% of placed Rosies identifying as Black, Indigenous or People of Color. Additionally, We Are Rosie provides Rosies with weekly pay and benefits to create a level of stability traditionally not available to freelancers. WRR recently debuted a proprietary new tech tool that matches talent with clients based on factors that aren’t on a resume — or “records of privilege and bias,” as Nadi Olson calls them — in favor of a more holistic understanding of talent.
Nadi Olson, who will be continuing in her role as CEO, added, “This partnership provides us access to ACP’s growth resources and the capital to support our clients with better infrastructure so that we can accelerate our goals of creating access, opportunity, and wealth for independent marketers, especially those who’ve historically been marginalized by the industry.”
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