The public sector usually publishes its business opportunities in the form of “tenders,” to increase transparency to the public. However, this data is scattered, and larger businesses have access to more information, giving them opportunities to grab contracts before official tenders are released. We have seen the controversy around U.K. government contracts going to a number of private consultants who have questionable prior experience in the issues on which they are winning contracts.
And public-to-private sector business makes up 14% of global GDP, and even a 1% improvement could save €20 billion for taxpayers per year, according to the European Commission.
Stotles is a new U.K. startup technology that turns fragmented public sector data — such as spending, tenders, contracts, meeting minutes or news releases — into a clearer view of the market, and extracts relevant early signals about potential opportunities.
It’s now raised a £1.4 million seed round led by Speedinvest, with participation from 7Percent Ventures, FJLabs and high-profile angels, including Matt Robinson, co-founder of GoCardless and CEO at Nested; Carlos Gonzalez-Cadenas, COO at Go-Cardless; Charlie Songhurst, former head of Corporate Strategy at Microsoft; Will Neale, founder of Grabyo; and Akhil Paul. It received a previous investment from Seedcamp last year.
Stotles’ founders say they had “scathing” experiences dealing with public procurement in their previous roles at organizations like Boston Consulting Group and the World Economic Forum.
The private beta has been open for nine months, and is used by companies including UiPath, Freshworks, Rackspace and Couchbase. With this funding announcement, they’ll be opening up an early access program.
Competitors include: Global Data, Contracts Advance, BIP Solutions, Spend Network/Open Opps, Tussel and TenderLake. However, most of the players out there are focused on tracking cold tenders, or providing contracting data for periodic generic market research.
