Hayden Brown
Analyst · Canaccord. You may begin
Thanks Evan and thank you all for joining us today for our fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings call. 2021 was a remarkable year for Upwork not only in how far we push our business forward, but also in how clearly it has set our path for continued performance in 2022 and beyond. GSV grew 41% year-over-year to reach $3.5 billion and revenue grew 35% year-over-year to reach $503 million for the full year 2021. Additionally, during the fourth quarter, we surpassed $15 billion in lifetime talent earnings on Upwork. This achievement highlights the magnitude of impact we have had and signals how we are leading the global movement to reimagine work. Last year we launched a host of powerful products and features including Project Catalog Talent Scout and virtual talent bench as well as valuable partnerships with technology and benefits providers such as Loom and Catch. We had successful high-profile collaborations with leading brands including Budweiser and Crispin Kish launched the perfect Fit brand campaign to raise awareness of Upwork to customers and prospects. And in the third quarter, as a result of our confidence in the long-term value creation opportunity in enterprise sales, we announced our intentions to double the number of account executives on our sales team by the end of 2022. And we are just getting started. We believe, timing matters and time frame matters. In terms of timing, the time continues to be now for investing in our business to win customer market share at a time when customer needs for our offering are accelerating and our brand awareness is low. We will do this with conviction in the year ahead, as planned because, we are building a powerful and sustainable business with leading share, economics and growth rates for the long term. In terms of time frame, 2021 was the first year, executing our three-part strategy to innovate, evangelize and scale our work marketplace. We have always known this strategy will take multiple years to fully deliver and we are pleased with our progress to date. Due to this progress and are confident in our execution, we are accelerating our target of achieving $1 billion in revenue by one year to 2024, up from our previous time line of 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of approximately 25% over the next three years. We are also excited to announce, that we are setting an enterprise revenue target of $300 million by 2025, almost 10 times what we delivered in 2021, which represents a compound annual growth rate over the next four years of more than 70%. Our innovation ambitions are bigger than ever. Amidst the backdrop of the work awakening at time in which people are reevaluating what they want in work and life and realigning their priorities accordingly. We have embraced an expanded vision for Upwork as the world's work marketplace. We build for companies to flex into the new operating model of the new world and we build for talent to flex into new ways of working. We anticipate that the businesses who embrace this work awakening will be poised to out-innovate companies who do not. 2022 is the year that Upwork takes the next steps in evolving from being the largest global freelance marketplace, as measured by GSV to broadening our horizon as the world's work marketplace. Our focus has evolved because the world has evolved. The old binary notion of freelance versus full-time employee work are being revisited in a world where remote work is rampant, where career and work innovation is happening all around us and where talent and clients are searching for new solutions to both new and old challenges they're struggling with. Many professionals are seeking to unbundle aspects of traditional full-time work to get benefits in new ways, while others are seeking new benefits without shackling themselves to a full-time job. We are poised to innovate these solutions with and for our customers and our strong foundation, help us do just that. We have distinctive know-how in building and delivering relationship-centered flexible solutions for knowledge workers. We have products in the market that already empower workers to seamlessly transition from freelance to full-time work and back. And we have teams that already design and deliver modern work models at scale for our enterprise clients. This year, we will build on our existing foundations with a lineup of new offerings that will continue to make the transition from freelance to full-time and vice versa and the integration of both working models seamless for all our customers. We at Upwork are focused on accelerating the work awakening, empowering professionals by building their online home for work that grows and flexes with them across their career and as their needs change. And for businesses, delivering a singular destination that gives them access to the freelance and full-time professionals they need on the work marketplace that makes these powerful relationships and the tools to manage them a foregone conclusion. We have always seen ourselves as the pacesetters of innovation and work. And in a time when the speed and creativity with, which people are constructing their careers is accelerating and companies are rethinking their workforces, Upwork will be the work marketplace that empowers them to achieve their goals. Thank you for joining us on this journey. We will now open the call to your questions.