GovTech Online B2B Marketplace CoProcure Nets $22M

Online market CoProcure, which works for vendors and buyers of government technology, has raised $22 million in a Series A round, according to a Monday (March 7) report from Government Technology.

The move comes as there’s been a greater push for moving B2B commerce to the digital world.

Local and state governments have also been moving more tasks to a digital format, due to the pandemic and the acceleration of remote and online work. Digital procurement, per the report, is also part of that trend.

CoProcure, which was founded in 2018, works on helping government officials with “cooperative contracts” that are used by various government agencies, along with national purchasing cooperatives. Agencies can also piggyback off of the contracts, the company said.

All of this is intended to address a pain point in the government procurement world in that there’s no central source where government tech buyers can find vendors and also access cooperative contracts, according to CEO and co-founder Mariel Reed.

“We are unlocking all these contracts that have been locked away in digital or physical filing cabinets,” she said, per the report.

The funding round was led by Forerunner Ventures, and other investors included Leadout Capital and Neo. Additionally, angel investors Marco Zappacosta, founder of Thumbtack; Dan Lewis, founder of Convoy; and Katrina Lake, founder of Stitch Fix, joined the round.

PYMNTS wrote that there’s been an increased use of digitization among accounts payable and accounts receivable departments, which could ramp up even further in the coming years.

See also: 80% of Buyer-to-Supplier Transactions Could Be Completed Electronically by 2025

According to the B2B Digital Payments Tracker, a PYMNTS and American Express collaboration, 80% of buyer-supplier transactions might be done electronically by 2025.

The reinvention was in part because of the aforementioned pandemic, with companies finally ditching older paper-based methods of doing things. As partners shut their doors and take more operations online, this is becoming more prevalent.