Justin Wenig recalls his days at Y Combinator in 2019.
At the time, he was working with his first startup, Coursedog. The company was looking to provide more modern tools to higher education facilities, including those working with state governments. He quickly learned that his colleagues didn't like working with the public sector – there was too much bureaucracy.
Just finding out basic information, such as what the district had purchased in the past year, required a lot of paperwork.
“Out of hundreds of startups, only a handful were trying to modernize the way government and education work,” Wenig told TechCrunch. “Investors thought it was too slow, too bureaucratic, too difficult to scale. And to be fair, they weren't wrong. Selling to the public sector was a pain.”
He sold Course Dog to JMI Equity for nine figures in 2021 and remains on the board. In 2024, he launched Starbridge, a platform that helps corporate sales teams monitor public sector opportunities and take actions such as submitting proposals and drafting grant and budget bids. Sturbridge on Wednesday announced a $42 million Series A led by David Sachs' company Craft Ventures.
Wenig said the biggest challenge in the public sector is that data is fragmented and inaccessible.
“Critical purchasing information is scattered across PDFs, agency websites, meeting minutes, and old directories,” he said, adding that vendors spend hours compiling contacts and other insights.
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Starbridge takes public web data sources from such sources and aggregates the information in one place. Powered by Starbridge, sales teams using the platform can see a ranked score of how public sector accounts are most likely to purchase new technology, as well as stay up to date on changes in leadership, new initiatives, and more.
“Rather than following the noise, our customers have a clear, data-backed view of where to focus and when to act,” he said.
Wenig called his fundraising “fun” and said he discovered Kraft through a friend. Other investors 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 a “Starbridge integrated experience,” so users don't always need access to the Starbridge platform to use its technology.
“All your competitors have direct access to your CRM, all account questions can be answered directly from Slackbot, and all job openings are loaded directly into your sequencer,” Wenig said.
Other companies in this space include GovWin and GovSpend. Sturbridge said this is different because it's building AI workflows on top of the dataset to make it easier for sales teams to use.
He recalls a time when he was fundraising for Coursedog. “No venture capitalists were interested in talking to us,” he says. But now, in the age of AI, the tide is changing, he said.
“Maybe no one wants to run for office anymore, but they want to build,” he continued. “Seeing the new wave of mission-driven founders tackling real-world organizational challenges makes me incredibly hopeful for the future.”