What Twine does

Twine, operated by UK-registered Clowdy Limited (company number 08195808), is a global freelance marketplace that connects businesses with vetted independent professionals across creative, technical, and marketing disciplines. The platform is built around a self-serve website (twine.net) where clients can browse freelancers, post projects for free, and pay through a managed escrow-style payment system; AI-driven matching pairs clients with talent based on skills, portfolio content, and project requirements. Beyond the core marketplace, Twine offers Twine Business and Twine Enterprise tiers for organizations hiring and paying multiple contractors globally, including multi-year enterprise contracts and managed service support. The platform serves 5,000+ companies and 500,000+ freelancers across 190+ countries, with named enterprise logos including Netflix, Amazon, Experian, Intuit, Avast, and WeWork, alongside SMB and startup customers. Revenue is generated through success-based commissions on completed engagements and tiered subscriptions (Free ad-supported, Pro monthly, Enterprise multi-year), with the company emphasizing pricing materially below traditional recruiters.

Twine's product surface extends well beyond classic freelance matching into an AI and data services vertical branded Twine AI. This includes a Dataset Marketplace with commercial and free off-the-shelf speech and vision datasets, custom crowdsourced dataset creation, data labeling services, and an AI Dataset Project Calculator for scoping engagements. Adjacent products — a One-page Website Builder for freelancer portfolios and curated Freelancer and Startup Toolkits (500+ tools) — extend the platform into a freelancer productivity ecosystem, while integrations with Stripe (payments), Google Analytics and Mixpanel (analytics), and Crisp (support) underpin the underlying stack. The company maintains offices in London (registered HQ) and Manchester, operates with a small internal team of 1–10 employees, and has been bootstrapped or lightly funded, with cumulative disclosed funding of roughly $2.6M across rounds between 2014 and 2020 and recent investor-style participation in Rowspace's $50M seed/Series A alongside Sequoia, Emergence Capital, and Stripe.

Name

Twine

Legal name

Clowdy Limited

Website

https://twine.net

Company type

Private

Founded year

2013

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

101–250 employees

Short description

Twine is a UK-based global freelance marketplace (operated by Clowdy Limited) connecting 5,000+ companies with 500,000+ vetted freelancers across creative, development, marketing, and AI/data disciplines, monetizing via transaction commissions and tiered subscriptions including enterprise managed services.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Manchester

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Transaction/Commission Fees: Twine charges success-based fees on completed engagements between clients and freelancers. The platform takes a commission on projects, with pricing described as lower than traditional recruiters.
2. Subscription Services: Twine offers subscription tiers including Free (ad-based), Pro (subscription fee for enhanced features), and Enterprise services for clients requiring multiple engagements with better payment structures.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Twine operates a global online freelance marketplace that connects businesses with vetted freelance talent across creative, technical, and marketing categories, supported by AI-powered matching, secure payment processing, and contractor management tools. Beyond matching, Twine provides AI and machine learning dataset services, including a Dataset Marketplace of off-the-shelf speech and vision datasets and crowdsourced custom dataset creation. Enterprise clients can access a managed Twine Business service to scale and pay multiple contractors globally.

Product overview

Twine is a global freelance marketplace platform operated by Clowdy Ltd. (UK company number 08195808) that connects businesses with vetted freelancers across creative, technical, and marketing disciplines. The core offering consists of the Twine Freelance Marketplace for hiring freelancers and Twine AI for dataset services and AI training data. The platform includes complementary products: Twine Business for managing multiple contractors, Twine Enterprise for managed large-scale projects, a Dataset Marketplace for off-the-shelf AI training data, a One-page Website builder for freelancer portfolios, and curated Freelancer and Startup Toolkits. Twine serves over 500,000 experts and 5,000+ companies, facilitating work in video/animation, graphic design, music/audio, marketing, app/web development, and AI/ML across 190+ countries.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Twine AI: AI and machine learning services offered through Twine, including data collection, dataset marketplace, and AI expert hiring.

Products and services

• Twine Freelance Marketplace Global online marketplace where businesses post projects and are matched with vetted freelance experts across creative, technical, and marketing categories, with secure payment processing.
• Twine AI (Dataset Services) AI and machine learning data services for AI companies and researchers, including custom dataset creation, data labeling, and access to off-the-shelf speech and vision datasets.
• Twine Business Enterprise contractor management solution for hiring and paying multiple freelancers globally, providing consolidated payment handling and team-level controls.
• Twine Enterprise Managed service offering for large organizations with bespoke talent sourcing, dedicated support, and project management for large or complex freelance engagements.
• Dataset Marketplace Marketplace of commercial and free off-the-shelf speech and vision datasets for AI model training, accessible via Twine AI.

Quantifiable outcome

• Scale projects quicker than before with Twine Business managing and paying contractors globally
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers8 records

Segments6 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration4 records

AI capability3 records

Feature4 records

Scale indicators9 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Upwork: Upwork is the largest global freelance marketplace connecting businesses with independent professionals across creative, development, and marketing categories — directly competing with Twine's core offering and explicitly listed on Twine's comparison pages.
• Fiverr: Fiverr operates a global freelance services marketplace focused on creative, digital marketing, and programming gigs — a direct competitor to Twine, explicitly named on Twine's comparison content.
• Toptal: Toptal is a curated freelance marketplace for elite software developers, designers, and finance experts — a direct competitor serving the higher-end of the same freelance buyer base Twine targets.
• Freelancer.com: Freelancer.com operates a global freelance and crowdsourcing marketplace across programming, design, writing, and marketing — a direct competitor with comparable breadth of categories to Twine.
• 99designs: 99designs is a design-focused freelance marketplace owned by Vista that connects businesses with graphic designers — a direct competitor in the creative-design category where Twine is particularly strong.
• PeoplePerHour: PeoplePerHour is a UK-based freelance marketplace connecting businesses with web developers, designers, and marketers — a direct competitor with similar UK roots and SMB focus as Twine.
• Guru: Guru.com is a US-based freelance marketplace covering programming, design, writing, and business services — a direct competitor serving the same SMB and mid-market freelance buyer base as Twine.
• Appen: Appen provides AI training data services including data collection, annotation, and dataset creation — a direct peer to Twine AI's dataset marketplace and data labeling offerings for machine learning model training.
• Scale AI: Scale AI is a leading data labeling and AI training data platform serving major AI labs and enterprises — a direct competitor to Twine AI's data services business on the higher end of the market.

Emerging players

• A.Team: A.Team is an emerging curated network of product teams and developers offering on-demand formation — an emerging peer targeting the same enterprise and startup buyers Twine serves with its Enterprise tier.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/jointwine
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/twine.is
• Instagraminstagram.com/jointwine
• Facebookfacebook.com/jointwine

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles3 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds6 records

Investors6 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Twine