Investment group Accel Partners on Thursday announced a $35 million round of funding for crowdsource design website 99designs.

If you’re unfamiliar with the website, 99designs allows businesses to crowdsource all of their design needs from simple logos to full website templates on a single platform full of talented designers.

With prices starting as low as $99 per design the site which was founded in 2008 has been a profitable venture full of design contests and a pay structure in which users only pay for the final design they choose to purchase.

According to site numbers 99designs has hosted more than 75,000 designs and their designers have already earned more than $19 million since the sites initial launch.

Also participating in the round of funding were angel investors, Michael Dearing, Dave Goldberg, Stewart Butterfield, and Anthony Casalena.

In a press release Dearing said of the site:

“99designs caught my attention when I realized that nearly every one of the early stage companies and entrepreneurs I work with was turning to them to get great design work done,” while adding, “The team has created a marketplace that is easy for companies to get onboard with, and also a boon for designers who can go after any of the hundreds of jobs open at any one time.”

What do you think about the rather large investment 99designs has achieved.

99Designs Raises $35 Million From Accel Partners, Other Investors is a post from: The Inquisitr

The figure may sound high, but it’s only a 11x raw multiple on the $115 million invested into the company over 4.5 rounds (there was an extended Series D round with an additional $20m), but in effect a much lower multiple for investors. Investors in Glam include Hubert Burda Media, GLG Partners, Hercules Technology Growth Capital, Accel Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, WaldenVC, Information Capital LLC and DAG Ventures.

The company has been prone to exaggeration in the past, particularly when it comes to traffic figures, with Glam regularly claiming figures such as 53 million across its “network” when most of that traffic isn’t there’s. Glam operates as a hybrid blog network and advertising company, but most of the value comes from the advertising arm, a business that is always risky when your inventory can easily decrease overnight.

On the positive side though every person and company I’ve spoken to who has been using Glam Media for advertising sales over the last few years has been extremely happy with the high yield results. Glam has come to own the female advertising vertical and it’s a space that pays surprisingly very, very well. However TechCrunch did report in March that Glam was slashing advertising rates.

The remaining question though: was turning down $1.3 billion the right decision, particularly at a time where the US economy is under severe pressure that could result in a curtailing of ad spending? Time will tell, but we do know for sure that the peak of the boom can’t last forever.

Glam Turned Down a $1.3 Billion Offer: Report is a post from: The Inquisitr