Justin Wenig looks back on his days at Y Combinator in 2019.
Back then, he was working with his first startup, Coursedog, which was trying to provide more modern tools to higher education facilities, including those that work with government departments. He quickly learned that his peers didn’t like working with the public sector — too much bureaucracy.
Even finding basic information, like what a school district bought last year, required a lot of paperwork.
“Out of hundreds of startups, only a few of us were trying to modernize the way government and education work,” Wenig told TechCrunch. “Investors thought it was too slow, too bureaucratic, too difficult to scale. And to be fair, they weren’t wrong. Selling to the public sector was painful.”
He sold Coursedog in 2021 for nine figures to JMI Equity and remains on the board. 2024 has begun Starbridgea platform that helps business sales teams track opportunities in the public sector so they can then take action, such as submitting proposals or writing grant bids and budgets. On Wednesday, Starbridge announced a $42 million round led by David Sacks’ Craft Ventures.
Wenig said the biggest challenges in the public sector are that data is fragmented and inaccessible.
“Critical buying information is scattered in PDF files, agency websites, meeting minutes and outdated directories,” he said, adding that sellers spend hours trying to combine who to contact and other information.
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Starbridge pulls public web data from such sources and puts the information in one place. The sales team using the platform can see a ranking score, courtesy of Starbridge, of which public sector accounts are most likely to purchase new technology and see updates such as leadership changes or new initiatives.
“Instead of chasing the noise, our customers have a clear, data-driven view of where to focus and when to act,” he said.
Wenig described his fundraising journey as “fun” and said the company met Craft through a friend. Others in the Series A round include Owl Ventures, Commonweal Ventures and Autotech Ventures. The company has raised $52 million to date after previously raising a $10 million seed round.
Next, the startup plans to launch the “integrated Starbridge experience” so that users don’t always have to go to the Starbridge platform to use its technology.
“Every competitor goes directly into your CRM, every question about an account can be answered directly by a slackbot, every job change is loaded directly into your sequencer,” Wenig said.
Others in this space include GovWin and GovSpend. Starbridge said it’s different because it has built AI workflows on top of the data sets to make it easier for sales teams to use.
He remembers the time when he was raising money for Coursedog. “No VC was interested in talking to us,” he said. But now, in the age of artificial intelligence, the tides are turning, he said.
“Maybe no one wants to run anymore, but they want to build,” he continued. “Seeing this new wave of mission-driven founders tackle real, systemic challenges makes me incredibly optimistic about the future.”
