David Sacks’ Craft leads $42 million Collection A in govtech startup Starbridge

Justin Wenig remembers his days at Y Combinator in 2019.

Again then, he was working together with his first startup, Coursedog, which appeared to offer extra fashionable instruments to greater academic services, together with those who work with state departments. He discovered shortly that his friends didn’t like working with the general public sector — an excessive amount of forms.

Even discovering out fundamental info, like what a faculty district bought up to now yr, required numerous paperwork.

“Out of a whole bunch of startups, solely a handful of us have been attempting to modernize how authorities and training labored,” Wenig instructed TechCrunch. “Buyers thought it was too sluggish, too bureaucratic, too laborious to scale. And to be truthful, they weren’t fallacious. Promoting to the general public sector was painful.”

He bought Coursedog in 2021 for nine-figures to JMI Fairness and remaisn on the board. In 2024, he launched Starbridge a platform that helps enterprise gross sales groups monitor alternatives within the public sector to allow them to then take motion, resembling submitting proposals or drafting bids for grants and budgets. On Wednesday, Starbridge introduced a $42 million Collection A led by David Sacks’ agency Craft Ventures.

Wenig mentioned the best challenges in public sector is that information is fragmented and inaccessible.

“Vital shopping for info is scattered throughout PDFs, company web sites, assembly minutes, and outdated directories,” he mentioned, including that distributors spend hours attempting to piece collectively who to contact and different insights.

Starbridge pulls public net information sources from such sources and places the data in a single place. The gross sales staff utilizing the platform can see a ranked scoring, courtesey of Starbridge, of which public sector accounts are probably to buy new expertise, and see updates like management adjustments or new initiatives.

“As an alternative of chasing noise, our prospects have a transparent, data-backed view of the place to focus and when to behave,” he mentioned.

Wenig described his fundraising journey as “enjoyable,” and mentioned the corporate met Craft by a pal. Others within the Collection A spherical embody Owl Ventures, CommonWeal Ventures, and Autotech Ventures. The corporate has raised $52 million so far, after beforehand elevating a $10 million seed.

Subsequent, the startup plans to launch “Starbridge built-in expertise,” so customers would not have to at all times go to the Starbridge platform to make use of its expertise.

“Each competitor goes proper to your CRM, each query about an account will be answered proper from a slackbot, each job change hundreds proper into your sequencer,” Wenig mentioned.

Others on this house embody GovWin and GovSpend. Starbridge mentioned its totally different as a result of it has constructed AI workflows on prime of the datasets to make it simpler for gross sales groups to make use of.

He remembers again when he was fundraising for Coursedog. “No VC was eager about speaking to us,” he mentioned. However now, within the AI, period, the tides are shifting, he mentioned.

“Perhaps no one needs to run for workplace anymore, however they do need to construct,” he continued. “Seeing this new wave of mission-driven founders tackling actual, systemic challenges makes me extremely looking forward to the long run.”