Business Development Representative

US govtech startup Starbridge bags $42m series A. Starbridge, a US-based govtech startup, has raised US$42 million in a series A round led by Craft Ventures, with participation from Owl Ventures, Commonweal Ventures, and Autotech Ventures. Founded in 2024 by Justin Wenig, the company offers a platform that aggregates public sector purchasing data to help sales teams identify opportunities and manage proposals. The platform collects information from public web sources, including agency websites and meeting minutes, and provides ranked scores of potential government technology buyers. With a total of US$52 million in funding to date, Starbridge plans to launch an integrated experience that allows users to access its technology directly from tools like CRMs and messaging platforms. Food for thought. Starbridge's $42M bet targets an underexplored sector. * The public-sector professional services market rose from $53.6 billion in 2022 to $61.8 billion in 2024 and has a 6.0% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) through 2027 1. GovWin serves a base while Starbridge bets on AI automation over coverage. * State and local contracting fell 1.2% in Q4 2024, while local government rose 1.7% as state and education trailed 2. Starbridge could help vendors react faster, though ties to GovWin and the need for contract and agency data keep switching costs high per a survey of 600+ contractors 3. * American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds are winding down while the Infrastructure Act stays active 1, so Starbridge scoring must favor smaller projects over catch-up spending. Integration gaps create openings for middleware and connector specialists. * Starbridge pitches an integrated experience inside customer relationship management (CRM) systems, Slack, and sales engagement sequencers, which are tools that automate outreach cadences. GovWin links to Deltek for Professional Services (DPS) from Deltek, a project-based enterprise software provider 4. Setup is manual, so third-party independent software vendors (ISVs) can ship connectors that bridge Starbridge's application programming interface (API) to niche CRMs. * Financial services grew 7.8% while environmental rose 7.0% in Q4 2024 2, creating room for specialists to bundle Starbridge feeds with compliance automation or disaster response. * Software-as-a-service (SaaS) operators in proposal automation or grant management can white-label Starbridge's scoring engine to differentiate without building public-sector data pipelines, tapping the 46% of contractors planning to diversify offerings 3. How would you feel if you could no longer use Tech in Asia?

David Sacks' Craft leads $42M Series A in govtech startup Starbridge. Justin Wenig remembers his days at Y Combinator in 2019. Back then, he was working with his first startup, Coursedog, which looked to provide more modern tools to higher-educational facilities, including those that work with state departments. He learned quickly that his peers didn't like working with the public sector - too much bureaucracy. Even finding out basic information, like what a school district purchased in the past year, required a lot of paperwork. "Out of hundreds of startups, only a handful of us were trying to modernize how government and education worked," Wenig told TechCrunch. "Investors thought it was too slow, too bureaucratic, too hard 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. In 2024, he launched Starbridge, a platform that helps business sales teams monitor opportunities in the public sector so they can then take action, such as submitting proposals or drafting bids for grants and budgets. On Wednesday, Starbridge announced a $42 million Series A led by David Sacks' firm Craft Ventures. Wenig said the greatest challenges in public sector is that data is fragmented and inaccessible. "Critical buying information is scattered across PDFs, agency websites, meeting minutes, and outdated directories," he said, adding that vendors spend hours trying to piece together who to contact and other insights. 2-FOR-1 DISCOUNT: bring a +1 and save 60%. Starbridge pulls public web data sources from such sources and puts the information in one place. The sales team using the platform can see a ranked scoring, courtesy of Starbridge, of which public sector accounts are most likely to purchase new technology, and see updates like leadership changes or new initiatives. "Instead of chasing noise, our customers have a clear, data-backed 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. Next, the startup plans to launch "Starbridge integrated experience," so users do not have to always go to the Starbridge platform to use its technology. "Every competitor goes right to your CRM, every question about an account can be answered right from a slackbot, every job change loads right 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 datasets to make it easier for sales teams to use. He remembers back when he was fundraising for Coursedog. "No VC was interested in talking to us," he said. But now, in the AI era, the tides are shifting, he said. "Maybe nobody wants to run for office anymore, but they do want to build," he continued. "Seeing this new wave of mission-driven founders tackling real, systemic challenges makes me incredibly hopeful for the future." Dominic-Madori Davis is a senior venture capital and startup reporter at TechCrunch. She is based in New York City. You can contact or verify outreach from Dominic by emailing [email protected] or via encrypted message at +1 646 831-7565 on Signal. Bring a +1 and save 60% Have a +1 you'd like to bring to Disrupt? Bring them along and save 60% on their pass. Or get up to 30% off on group passes. Join 10,000 founders, investors, and tech leaders - and save when you come together to the tech epicenter of the year.

David Sacks' Craft led a $42 million Series A funding round for govtech startup Starbridge. Founded by Justin Wenig, Starbridge aims to assist business sales teams in navigating public sector opportunities. Wenig, who previously sold his first startup, Coursedog, for nine figures, launched Starbridge in 2024 to address the challenges of working with the public sector.