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Online freelance platform Upwork is going public. It filed its S-1 for an initial public offering of 12.3 million shares at $12 to $14 per share on Monday, and opened today at over $20.

Upwork has continuously grown, and in the year ending in June, its revenue was over $225 million, yet the company lost over $7M in the past 6 months. With the freelance workforce expected to continue its growth in the coming years, the company seems primed to take on its competitors, including social media giant LinkedIn.

What is Upwork?

Upwork came to be after a merger between two freelance platforms, oDesk and Elance, in 2013. It connects businesses and other individuals with freelancers in a wide variety of fields, from programming and web developing to writing and marketing.

Freelancers create profiles on the site where they can showcase their skills and experience. Clients can browse candidates’ profiles and see ratings and feedback from previous clients before making a hire. Candidates and clients can also share files, send messages and even video chat right on the platform to assist in the interview process.

Clients can pay freelancers hourly or by milestone. Upwork offers a time tracker that measures the activity level of the freelancer during time tracking. It also periodically takes screenshots of the freelancer’s screen so the client can monitor the progress and ensure that the freelancer is actually working.

The Rise of Freelancing

In the year ending in June, the platform facilitated 2 million projects with freelancers for 475,000 clients. Upwork’s gross services value (GSV) was $1.56 billion. The company estimates that the total global GSV opportunity for its platform was $560 billion in 2017. This means there is significant room to grow for the company.

In fact, freelancing is expected to continue to grow. According to a 2017 survey conducted by independent research firm Edelman Intelligence, the number of U.S. freelancers increased by 8.1 percent from 2014 to 2017, while the total U.S. workforce grew just 2.6 percent during the same time frame. About 36 percent of the U.S. workforce freelanced in 2017. The survey also found that over half of the U.S. population will be freelancing by 2027, if current trends continue.

As for the rest of the world, according to a survey on freelancers conducted by financial services company Payoneer, 35.5 percent of freelancers are in Europe, 29.2 percent in Latin America and 28 percent in Asia. Freelancing is especially growing in developing countries.