Freelance and crowdsourcing platform Freelancer.com, has acquired Nubelo and Prolancer, the largest Spanish and Portuguese freelancing marketplaces as a way to unite the European gig economy while expanding its presence in new markets.

Through these acquisitions, Freelancer.com is now the dominant market leader in Latin America, Spain and Portugal. When Freelancer.com launched operations in Latin America in 2012, the Spanish and Portuguese markets represented less than 0.2 per cent of Freelancer.com’s operations. After four years of growth, this grew to roughly 10 per cent of Freelancer.com’s total revenue, generated from 1.8 million users, who have posted over 502,000 projects.

Nubelo was founded in 2012 by Spanish entrepreneur Francesc Font, and Argentinean twins Nicolas and Jorge Araujo Muller. Headquartered in Barcelona, and venture financed by Caixa Capital Risc, Nero Ventures, South Ventures, Start-Up Chile, Cabiedes & Partners, Mountain Nazca & South Ventures, the company grew to become the largest freelancing marketplace in the Spanish language after Freelancer.com, with 50 employees across offices in Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Bogotá and São Paulo, Brazil.

In July 2015, Nubelo took control of Prolancer.com.br, a Brazilian marketplace founded by Sergio Mendez Baiges and headquartered in Sao Paulo, in order to expand its reach to the Portuguese market. Combined, they successfully grew to almost 750,000 registered users and over 122,000 posted projects.

“This acquisition reinforces our global presence and international expansion, consolidating our platform as the leader not only in the English language, but now also in all Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries. We welcome all of Nubelo’s and Prolancer’s users to our community where they will find over 8,000 new jobs per day, and the ability to work with our talented worldwide community of 22 million users”, said Matt Barrie, chief executive of Freelancer.com.

The terms of the acquisition were undisclosed.