Arcbazar.com

What Arcbazar.com does

Arcbazar.com, Inc. operates a two-sided web-based crowdsourcing marketplace for small-to-medium-scale architectural and design projects. Founded in 2010 and headquartered at the Harvard Innovation Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the platform connects spaceowners (clients) with a global pool of architectural, interior, and landscape designers through structured design competitions. Clients publish a project brief, set a prize award, and receive multiple design submissions (averaging 17 per competition); submissions are rated by the client, invited family and friends, and a public voting layer, after which the client selects a winning design. The platform serves six primary categories: remodeling, interiors, landscape, new residential, commercial, and public projects, with supporting tools including a Cost Estimator and a mobile companion product (SpaceApp). Geographic reach extends to 190+ countries with localization across 10 languages and 12 currencies, though competition demand is heavily concentrated in the United States (73.4%) while designer supply is concentrated in Turkey, Indonesia, and Egypt.

The platform is built as a self-serve, product-led marketplace with no direct sales intervention: both client and designer signup flows are completed independently through the website. Arcbazar earns revenue through transaction fees on competitions; clients pay a competition fee to launch a contest and fund the prize awarded to the winning designer, with typical prize amounts ranging from approximately $750 to $1,250. Over its operating history, the platform has facilitated 50,000+ projects, 1,000+ competitions, 26.7M correspondence messages, 929K uploaded files, and 460K votes. The company is privately held, has raised approximately $743,300 in disclosed equity funding across multiple small rounds since 2010 (the largest being a 2016 round involving Moderne Ventures), and operates with a team of 11-50 people. Leadership includes founder and CEO Imdat As (MIT master's, Harvard GSD doctorate), co-founders Halit Ciftci and Ana Batista, and a board chaired by Doug Elder with advisors drawn from MIT, Harvard GSD, Autodesk, Solidworks, and the broader Boston technology ecosystem.

Name

Arcbazar.com

Legal name

Arcbazar.com, Inc.

Website

https://arcbazar.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2010

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Online Architectural Design Marketplace

NAICS

Interior Design Services (54141)

SIC

Services-Advertising (7310)

akta.pro primary industry

Interior Design Services (BPAHAKAB)

akta.pro secondary industry

Landscape Architecture & Site Design (BPAHAKAC)

Keywords

• Architectural design competitions
• Crowdsourced design services
• Online design marketplace
• Residential design platform
• Interior landscape design

Headquarters

HQ city

Cambridge

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Digital Commerce or Content

Cost components

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

Revenue model

1. Competition fees: Clients (spaceowners) pay to launch design competitions. The platform facilitates the contest process where designers submit entries and winners receive prize awards. Pricing varies by project type, scope, and complexity as estimated through the platform's cost estimator tool.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Arcbazar.com operates an online crowdsourcing marketplace where spaceowners (clients) launch design competitions across categories such as Remodeling, Interior, Landscape, New Residential, Commercial, and Public. Designers from around the world compete by submitting design concepts; clients evaluate entries via voting and ranking (with input from family/friends), select top winners, and award prizes. The platform facilitates the entire competition lifecycle — project brief creation, design submission, community voting, correspondence, and prize payment — with a cost estimator tool to help clients budget their projects.

Product overview

Arcbazar is a platform-plus-services architecture consisting of the core Arcbazar Platform, which serves as a marketplace for architectural design competitions connecting clients with designers globally. The platform supports six main design categories: Remodeling, Interiors, Landscape, New Residential, Commercial, and Public. Additional offerings include a Cost Estimator tool for project budgeting and SpaceApp as a mobile companion. The platform facilitates the entire competition lifecycle from project brief submission through design evaluation and winner selection.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Design Competitions Marketplace Core service of the Arcbazar platform where clients (spaceowners) launch design competitions across six categories — Remodeling, Interior, Landscape, New Residential, Commercial, and Public — and designers from around the world submit competing design entries. Clients evaluate submissions via rating/ranking (with input from family/friends and expert jurors), select top winners, and award prizes. Example awards range from $750 (kitchen design) to $1,250 (residential remodeling).
• Cost Estimator An interactive project cost estimation tool that guides users through questions about project type (Home & Garden, Commercial, Institutional), scope, size, time, style, and preferences to produce a cost estimate for their design project. Available to prospective clients before they launch a competition.
• SpaceApp Companion mobile/AI application referenced in the Arcbazar footer at spaceapp.ai, providing an additional access point to the Arcbazar platform's design-competition services for clients and designers.

Quantifiable outcome

• Average of 17.01 design submissions per competition
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers3 records

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Scale indicators10 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• Houzz: Houzz is the largest home design and remodeling marketplace, connecting homeowners with architects, designers, and contractors. It overlaps with Arcbazar's spaceowner persona on interior and remodeling projects but operates at much greater scale with a different monetization model.
• Autodesk: Autodesk is the dominant provider of architectural design software (AutoCAD, Revit) and acquired VelaSystems (an Arcbazar adviser's company). It represents both a potential strategic acquirer and the underlying toolset used by Arcbazar's designer supply.
• Thumbtack: Thumbtack is a large US-focused local services marketplace connecting consumers with professionals including architects and designers. It serves a similar SMB/individual client base but emphasizes lead generation over contest-based design selection.

Emerging players

• Topcoder: Topcoder is a crowdsourcing platform for technology and design work, leveraging a global community competing for paid contests. Arcbazar board member Jack Hughes is Topcoder's co-founder, indicating strategic and operational similarity in contest-based crowdsourcing.
• Sweeten: Sweeten is a vetted marketplace matching homeowners with general contractors and architects for renovation projects. It targets the same residential remodeling client base as Arcbazar but emphasizes professional matching over design contests.
• Bark.com: Bark.com is a global services marketplace where customers post jobs and professionals submit quotes, including for architecture and design services. Its lead-generation model parallels Arcbazar's marketplace intermediation but spans many professional categories.

Others

• Behance: Behance (owned by Adobe) is the leading online community for designers to showcase portfolios and discover work. It serves the same designer persona as Arcbazar but focuses on portfolio and discovery rather than paid contest participation.
• Archinect: Archinect is an online community and job board for architects and architecture students. It overlaps with Arcbazar's designer supply base and serves as an indirect competitor for connecting architects with project opportunities.

Direct peers

• DesignCrowd: DesignCrowd runs a crowdsourced design marketplace where clients receive multiple design concepts from a pool of freelance designers. The contest mechanics, two-sided marketplace structure, and SMB client base closely parallel Arcbazar's positioning.
• 99designs (by Vista): 99designs operates a global crowdsourced design contest platform connecting clients with freelance designers across logo, web, and graphic design. It is the most direct analog to Arcbazar's contest-based marketplace model, with substantially larger scale and Vista (parent) backing.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/arcbazar
• Facebookfacebook.com/arcbazar
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/arcbazar-com-inc-

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles15 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds8 records

Investors3 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 Arcbazar.com