Escrow.com Acquired by Freelancer.com

Hello and Assalamo Alaikum,

Today morning I received an email from Brandon Abbey, the President of Escrow.com revealed an exciting news which I wanted to share with you.

SYDNEY, April 27, 2015: Freelancer.com, the world’s largest freelancing and crowdsourcing marketplace1 , today announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Escrow.com from a private investor for US$7.5 million in cash, and completed a AUD$10 million placement of ordinary shares to institutional investors.

Headquartered in California, Escrow.com provides online escrow services that facilitate and accelerate e-commerce by assuring secure settlement. It was founded in 1999 by Fidelity National Financial, a Fortune 500 company and the US’s largest provider of commercial and residential mortgage and diversified services.

Escrow.com is the leading provider of secure online payments and online transaction management for consumers and businesses on the Internet, with FY14 gross payment volume of US$265 million, net revenue of US$5 million, US$1.2 million in EBITDA and over US$2.2 billion in transactions to date.

Escrow.com reduces the risk of fraud by acting as a trusted third party that collects, holds and disburses funds according to buyer and seller instructions. Escrow services provided by the company are licensed and regulated.

Escrow.com partners include eBay, GoDaddy, AutoTrader.com, Flippa.com and it is also a strategic partner of the U.S. Commercial Service (USCS) in support of President Obama’s National Export Initiative designed to significantly grow US export volume.

Freelancer.com Chief Executive Matt Barrie said, “We are pleased to acquire Escrow.com, the world’s largest online escrow company. This highly complementary acquisition will enhance the ability of our 15 million users to transact securely, and there are large opportunities for growth and synergies with core offerings. Finally, it is a strong cornerstone for entering the payments space”.

Escrow.com President & Managing Director Brandon Abbey said, “We are excited to be joining the Freelancer.com group. Freelancer’s expertise in marketplaces, combined with our expertise in secure online payments are an excellent strategic fit.”.

The Escrow.com group staff will be continuing with the California-based business.

A capital raising of AUD$10 million of ordinary shares to institutional investors was oversubscribed and has been completed to fund the acquisition, and for general corporate purposes. 10 million ordinary shares were issued at $1.00, a premium to the last close of $0.995. UBS AG, Australia Branch, was sole bookrunner for the deal. The acquisition of Escrow.com is subject to regulatory approval.

Settlement of the placement is currently scheduled to take place on Thursday, 30 April 2015, with allotment and quotation of shares expected to occur on the ASX on Friday, 1 May 2015. Escrow.com was advised in the transaction by Capstone Partners LLC.

About Freelancer®

Quadruple Webby award-winning Freelancer.com is the world’s largest freelancing, crowdsourcing and local services marketplace by total number of users and projects posted. Over 15 million registered users have posted 7.5 million projects and contests to date in over 850 areas as diverse as website development, logo design, marketing, copywriting, astrophysics, aerospace engineering and manufacturing. Freelancer Limited is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange under the ticker ASX:FLN.

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Domain Observer
Domain Observer
8 years ago

With this change, I hope they upgrade their domain name escrow service so that the “Sedo-type Premium Service” is available for domain sellers. I got paid by Sedo.com on the same day as I transferred a domain to their escrow account. Yes on the same day literally. Yes, their escrow service fee is 3%, but their escrow service fully deserves the 3% fee.

Domain Observer
Domain Observer
Reply to  AbdulBasit Makrani
8 years ago

I mean they asked the bank to make payment on the same day. Bank wiring time is a different story and not under their control.

Domain Observer
Domain Observer
Reply to  AbdulBasit Makrani
8 years ago

The point is that the seller does not have to wait for the buyer’s action to get the sale money.

Domain Observer
Domain Observer
Reply to  AbdulBasit Makrani
8 years ago

“you may supply the registrant change email you received from the registrar” – I don’t know about other registrars, but Godaddy email simply says the domain is deleted from the account, nothing about the buyer. It cannot serve as proof of registrant change to the buyer. “you have the choice to ask Escrow.com to verify the domain change by checking the WHOIS” – What if the ‘buyer’ quickly changes WHOIS info (There are many ways to do that. One of them may be push domain to somebody else’s account immediately) before Escrow.com tries to verify the domain change at your… Read more »

Jill
Jill
8 years ago

Oh crap. Oh well. Will look elsewhere for escrow services from now on.

Jill
Jill
Reply to  AbdulBasit Makrani
8 years ago

Sure, I’ll tell.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/freemarket-is-spamming-flippas-failures.852780/

I dont wish to do business with spammers. People mention things in press releases all the time – only time will tell if they deviate from the press release. I dont think I am going to stick around to find out.

Jill
Jill
Reply to  AbdulBasit Makrani
8 years ago

Thank you. You are correct, only time will tell.

Karl
Karl
8 years ago

I fully understand Jill. I’m a customer of Freelancer.com for many years (Buyer). All I can say that there’s A LOT of space for improvements.

Domain Observer
Domain Observer
8 years ago

Thanks for your explanation.

Yes, Godaddy sends the email mentioned in your comment. But, that email does not show who the new registrant is. So, the email itself cannot serve as proof that the domain has been transferred to the buyer.

It of course says “the available information has been recorded in our system.” That may be the only relief, but will require a lot of painstaking efforts on the part of the seller to get things on the right track once the buyer is unfortunately an ill-willed person.

frank meester
8 years ago

Hi
I still dont understand why escrow does not use paypal to send funds to international sellers,only US sellers can receive the proceeds rom their sales.

trackback
7 years ago

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