Justin Wenig reflects on his days at Y Combinator in 2019.
He then worked with his first startup, Coursedog, which aimed to supply more modern tools to higher education institutions, including those working with state departments. He quickly learned that his peers didn’t like working in the public sector – too much bureaucracy.
Even obtaining basic information, corresponding to what the school district purchased last yr, required a lot of paperwork.
“Out of hundreds of startups, only a handful have tried to modernize how government and education work,” Wenig told TechCrunch. “Investors thought it was too slow, too bureaucratic and too difficult to scale. And honestly, they weren’t wrong. Selling to the public sector was painful.”
In 2021, he sold Coursedog for a nine-figure sum to JMI Equity and stays on the board. In 2024 he began Star Bridgea platform that helps corporate sales teams monitor opportunities in the public sector so they’ll then take motion, corresponding to submitting proposals or preparing bids for grants and budgets. On Wednesday, Starbridge announced a $42 million Series A round led by David Sacks’ Craft Ventures.
Wenig said the biggest challenge in the public sector is fragmentation and lack of access to data.
“Key purchasing information is scattered across PDFs, agency websites, meeting minutes and outdated catalogs,” he said, adding that sellers spend hours attempting to determine who to contact and obtain other information.
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Starbridge takes public data sources from such sources and places them in one place. Courtesy of Starbridge, a sales team using the platform can see a rating rating of where public sector accounts are almost definitely to purchase latest technology, in addition to see updates corresponding to leadership changes or latest initiatives.
“Instead of chasing the hype, our clients have a clear, data-backed picture of what to focus on and when to act,” he said.
Wenig described his fundraising journey as “fun” and said he was introduced to Craft through a friend. Others in the Series A round include Owl Ventures, Commonweal Ventures and Autotech Ventures. The company has raised $52 million so far, after previously raising a seed round of $10 million.
Next, the startup plans to launch an “integrated Starbridge experience” so that users don’t at all times have to go to the Starbridge platform to benefit from its technology.
“Every competitor goes directly into your CRM, every account question can be answered directly from the slackbot, every job change is loaded directly into your sequencer,” Wenig said.
Others in this space include GovWin and GovSpend. Starbridge says this is different because it has built AI workflows on top of information sets to make them easier for sales teams to make use of.
He remembers when he was fundraising for Coursedog. “No VC investors were interested in talking to us,” he said. However, now, in the era of artificial intelligence, the situation is changing, he added.
“Maybe no one wants to run for office anymore, but they want to build,” he continued. “Seeing this new wave of mission-driven founders tackling real, systemic challenges gives me incredible hope for the future.”