Visual.ly, a community for visual content, has closed a Series A financing round of $8.1 million. The round was led by Crosslink Ventures and included investments from Correlation Ventures, SoftTechVC, 500 Startups, Giza Ventures, Quest Ventures, and Kapor Capital (Mitch Kapor). The funding will make it even easier for global creatives to collaborate with each other and with customers. From ideation and data analysis to final deliverable and distribution. In addition, Visually will use the funding to enter new markets and increase its supply of global talent.
Just as Airbnb, Uber and oDesk have transformed the way people travel, commute and build software, Visually is disrupting the traditional agency model of content creation through the use of innovative technology. Its collaborative economy model connects a global supply of experienced designers, analysts, journalists, animators, and developers to the world’s most recognizable brands. Visually’s crowdsourced dynamics result in projects that are completed in about a third the time (some even as little as 24 hours) and less than half the cost — with the majority of the revenue going back to the creative talent. As a result, brands, organizations and companies like AOL, Red Bull, Twitter, NBC, P&G, UNESCO, Visa and Dell are finding that 
cloud-based collaboration helps them deliver the content they need at speed and scale.
“Visually’s marketplace is a game-changer, a whole new way to deliver content that takes advantage of the cloud” said Stew Langille, CEO and Co-Founder of Visually. “This new funding allows us to continue building towards our vision of becoming the global hub for visual content of all kinds and to continue investing in the expansion of our unique product.”
Eric Chin of Crosslink Ventures (whose previous investments in the collaborative economy include TakeLessons and Scripted will join the Visually board along with Stew Langille, Dave McClure of 500 Startups, and Jeff Clavier of SoftTechVC.
“Visually is the first platform to really use marketplace efficiencies to create high-quality and impactful visual content,”said Eric Chin, General Partner at Crosslink Capital. “Crosslink is proud to have seen the potential from the beginning and to throw our weight behind another collaborative economy powerhouse.”
Visually has seen 10X growth since the launch of its Project Center in 2013 and is on pace to maintain this trajectory through 2014. Beyond serving as a critical resource for Fortune 1000 companies, startups and more, creative professionals are increasingly identifying Visually as an effective means of expanding their client base and growing their personal brand. There are 100,000 creatives on the platform and Visually has paid out $2 million back to creatives.
Visually’s advisory board includes Alexis Ohanian Co-Founder of Reddit, Oren Jacob former Chief Technology Officer of Pixar, Hiten Shah, Founder of Kissmetrics, J Ford Huffman Information Design Pioneer, DJ Patil, VP of Product at RelateIQ, and Matt Mickiewicz, Founder of 99 Designs.
The traditional agency model of content creation was conceived in a time before the internet provided the connection and communication possibilities that make a marketplace model a reality. Visually is rethinking that model and developing a marketplace for custom visual content produced by some of the best designers around the world.