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GovTech Fund Quietly Doubles Its Portfolio

Plus, Chicago looks for new procurement tech, titans of local gov pursue 911 texting and more...

TOP NEWS

Govtech Fund Doubles Down The fund, an early investor looking specifically at the space, ramped up its portfolio from six companies to 13 in a relatively short period of time. And it did so minus the public revelry.

Chicago Looks for New Procurement Tech The Windy City is looking for new technology to move its procurement process from paper to digital. The move will affect nearly 30 departments, including police, fire, public health and transportation. The catch, of course, is that the city must go through the procurement process before it can update the same.

Titans of Local Gov Pursue 911 Texting As Cuyahoga County, the largest county in Ohio, readies itself to launch a 911 texting service, New York City considers a similar move. Only in New York, the recently-issued RFP calls for a massive digitization effort that would see the emergency system begin accepting texts, photos, videos and social media alongside phone calls.

Video Storage Costs Threaten to Delay Police Body Cams The Kansas City Police Department is staring down a $6 million sticker price, driven largely by the need to store video after it buys its officers cameras. It is not the only city where video storage has turned out to be a problem.

Six States Use Apps to Share Oil and Gas Well Data The majority of those states are working with an oil and gas industry nonprofit to help create better access to information about the locations and histories of oil and gas wells. That nonprofit, as well as the states involved, see apps as an opportunity to cut down on public records requests and increase transparency.

Bakersfield, Calif., Maps Street Condition Data The city has plotted out the conditions of its streets for all to see, at the behest of a councilmember.
 

 

MARKET SPOTLIGHT

 
Government workforce age gap


Private Sector Beats Public Sector at Hiring Millennials ... and the Center for Digital Government has numbers to back that up.

WATCHLIST

GovTech companies on our radar this week:

Sequent: A data tokenization company focused especially on card transactions. Sequent specifically offers services that allow transit agencies to accept phone-based payments. The company just raised a $16 million Series C round.

Run a GovTech company? Get on our radar here.

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WHAT WE'RE READING

The Big Business of Police Tech (Fast Company)

Please, No More Dashboards (Nick Bowden)

The Most Active VCs in Each State (CB Insights)

A Q&A with OpenGov CEO Zack Bookman (Lightspeed Venture Partners)

How Remix Is Fast Tracking City Transit (Fast Company)

Sequoia Capital's Guide to Writing a Business Plan (Sequioa Capital)

 

GovTechBiz is our weekly newsletter covering the companies, deals and trends in the business of gov tech. Got a news tip? Other feedback? We're listening. Send it to GovTechBiz Writer Ben Miller at biz@govtech.com.

Ben Miller is the associate editor of data and business for Government Technology. His reporting experience includes breaking news, business, community features and technical subjects. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in journalism from the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, and lives in Sacramento, Calif.