Bill Gurley, Jack Altman back startup Pursuit, which helps companies sell to government

Mike Vichich grew up in Michigan. His household, he remembers, devoted their lives to public service. His dad and mom have been academics, his uncle a fighter pilot, whereas each units of grandparents served within the military. “Rising up, public service was at all times a extremely admirable technique to spend one’s life and one’s profession,” he instructed TechCrunch. “I’ve three younger youngsters. I need them to develop up in a rustic the place authorities can really get stuff accomplished.” 

He went on to work in consulting, then launched a client firm that he offered to Olo for $200 million again in 2021. After his spouse gave beginning to their third son, he and Brandon Max, a founding engineer at his final startup, started discussing what they needed to do on this subsequent chapter of their careers. 

Every thought that they had got here again to at least one factor: that promoting to the federal government was actually laborious. “We have been like, possibly there’s one thing to that.” In 2023, they launched Pursuit, a web site that helps corporations discover and win authorities contracts. On Wednesday, it introduced a $22 million seed spherical led by Mike Rosengarten, the co-founder of OpenGov. The corporate has raised $25.5 million in funding thus far from buyers resembling Jack Altman (then at Alt Capital), Invoice Gurley, and Sam Hinkie at 87 Capital. 

Pursuit works by constantly studying public information from round 11,000 state, native, schooling (SLED) entities, Vichich defined, that means its AI programs are crawling budgets, contract registers, FIOA information, request for proposals from each state, college district, county, metropolis, and particular district throughout the nation. “We flip fragmented public information into absolutely researched alternatives,” he stated.

Then it surfaces the SLED businesses most probably to purchase a Pursuit’s clients specific companies throughout the subsequent yr, primarily based on indicators resembling their finances, the problems they face, and who’s in cost. 

He stated the shopper is any firm that sells to public service businesses, and described Pursuit as an “AI clone of themselves, ensuring they know the whole lot that’s taking place throughout each account of their patch.” 

Others on this area embrace Starbridge, GovSpend, and Deltek GovWin IQ. 

Vichich stated he hopes Pursuit can assist make SLED contract alternatives extra clear and accessible. “The info has at all times been public, that’s the irony,” he stated. It’s simply that this information is buried throughout hundreds upon hundreds of internet sites, misplaced in PDFs and assembly movies.

“The price of discovering and parsing it has traditionally been too excessive relative to the worth of any sign contract,” he continued. “Pursuit is the layer that turns daylight into one thing helpful.”