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SLED Procurement Firm Starbridge Raises $10M in Seed Funding

The company offers early warning data via its platform that can give suppliers of government technology an edge when it comes to contracts. The company’s founder explains the ideas driving his firm.

Starbridge has raised $10 million as the new company makes its official debut in government technology — its mission is to improve procurement in the SLED space.

The seed funding essentially serves a bet in favor of technology that can take “signals” from government agencies — basically, proactive data that helps suppliers take data from board meetings, RFPs and competitor contract expirations — to craft their own proposals.

Owl Ventures led the funding round, with venture capital firms Autotech, Commonweal Ventures and Avalanche also taking part, according to the blog post announcing the fresh capital.

The public launch of Starbridge comes after more than eight months of work getting to this point, according to Justin Wenig, who founded the company after serving as co-founder and CEO at Coursedog, a platform for higher education curriculum management, academic scheduling and other tasks.

The thesis driving his new company is opening up opportunities for a host of vendors — not just what he called “incumbent” suppliers — to win SLED deals, he told Government Technology.

Starbridge can create a personalized feed based on those signals that suppliers can use to take such action as creating emails and proposals without leaving the company’s platform.

The timing is all but perfect, he said, as more focus turns to tighter government spending with the new presidential administration, including its cost-cutting efforts via the Department of Government Efficiency promising to have wide influence in the public space.

As Wenig describes it, Starbridge can encourage more procurement competition, which can reduce costs for taxpayers.

The company is hardly the only operation trying to use the latest technology to open the procurement door wider. Late last year, for example, Cloverleaf AI, which sells technology designed to offer an advanced look at government contracts, raised $2.8 million in seed funding.

Wenig said the new funding round will help Starbridge pay for product development and engineers.

Editor’s note: The name of Commonweal Ventures has been corrected from a previous version.
Thad Rueter writes about the business of government technology. He covered local and state governments for newspapers in the Chicago area and Florida, as well as e-commerce, digital payments and related topics for various publications. He lives in Wisconsin.