99designs Receives $35 Million in Venture Capital Funding

No matter how you feel about those crowd-sourced, spec-based design outlets that have sprung up en masse over the last few years, one in particular has just gotten a big boost. Late last week, 99designs announced that it has received $35 million in funding from Accel Partners, the venture capital firm responsible for helping companies like Facebook, Etsy and Groupon grow and take over the world. The basic model for the business is that a company submits a brief, designers create samples based off that brief of logos or websites or whatever needs designing, and then the company picks a winner.