Stotles raises $6.5m investment to target public sector

UK startup Stotles has raised a $6.5 million seed investment round to accelerate product development, grow its team, and expand into new markets.

The funds will be used to boost product development and expand the firm’s product and commercial teams, it says. Stotles will also expand into new segments of the public sector and new locations beyond the UK.

“The business-to-government (B2G) market is the $12 trillion backbone of the global economy. But, this market is in desperate need of some tender love and care,” said Stotles CEO, John Witt.

“Every day, we see the painful friction buyers and suppliers have to deal with – fragmented data, complex regulation, heavy compliance, messy workflows. Some call it ‘boring’, but they’re missing the point. This space has been overlooked for decades. By streamlining the business processes that connect business and government, the technology we’re building is capable of saving the world trillions every year – that’s something we get excited about.”

Stotles said it wants to streamline “the end-to-end journey” for businesses working with governments, with companies like Workday, Tableau, and Gitlab adopted itsplatform. The current product serves commercial teams such as sales, marketing, partner & alliance, and account management, by helping them create a ‘single source of truth’ for public sector business development tasks and data. This, it said, helps find more relevant opportunities faster, pinpoint buying signals earlier (before tender or RFP), and enable stronger qualification and faster prospect outreach with market data tools and key contact sources.

Gearing up for growth

The funding round was led by Headline with participation from Form Ventures, GTMFund, Speedinvest, FJLabs, 7Percent and angels includingprominent Berlin-based investor Mathias HiIlpert.

“I hear it daily from the highest level of governments: digitisation of public procurement is the single most important key to unlocking the future of the global public sector. Stotles is the team to enable this revolution globally and we couldn’t be more thrilled to back them,” said Christian Miele, partner at Headline and chairman at the German Startups Association.

When asked about fundraising, team-building, and growth in difficult macroeconomic conditions, Carsten Schaltz, co-founder and CPO said, “Governments will always need businesses, and this need will never go away. We’re solving fundamental business problems and this gives us powerful momentum, recession or boom. We’re excited to grow our world-class team over the coming months to solve these problems better and faster than ever.”

“Stotles helps foster competition in the public-sector, thus driving better outcomes for government, taxpayers, and every member of society. This society-level impact is incredibly exciting and we can’t wait to do this at an even larger scale,” added Taj Kamranpour co-founder and COO.

Jeroen Arts, partner, Speedinvest’s marketplaces & consumer team, said: “Who said working with the public sector can’t be fun and exciting? Over the past 1.5 years, Stotles has helped top-tier companies like UiPath, Freshworks, and Workday do more business with some of the world’s largest buyers. With this funding, John, Taj, and Carsten will be able to further simplify and enhance public procurement to ensure that every penny of taxpayer’s money yields the best returns.”