Pursuit, a startup designed to help businesses navigate the complexities of government contracting, announced a $22 million seed round on Wednesday, according to TechCrunch.
The funding round was led by Mike Rosengerm, the co-founder of OpenGov. To date, the company has raised a total of $25.5 million from a roster of investors including Bill Gurley, Jack Altman, and Sam Hinkie of 87 Capital.
Founded in 2023 by Mike Vichich and Brandon Max, the platform uses data from approximately 11,000 state, local, and education (SLED) entities to help companies identify and win contracts.
For Vichich, the mission is personal. He noted that his family has a long history of public service, with parents who were teachers and grandparents who served in the army.
“Growing up, public service was always a really admirable way to spend one’s life and one’s career,” Vichich told TechCrunch. “I have three young kids. I want them to grow up in a country where government can actually get stuff done.”
Scaling government sales
Vichich previously founded a consumer company that he sold to Olo for $200 million in 2021. After a hiatus following the birth of his third son, he teamed up with Max, a founding engineer from his previous venture, to tackle the difficulties of the public sector market.
The duo identified that the primary barrier for private companies is the sheer difficulty of selling to government agencies. The platform addresses this by continuously monitoring public data across thousands of different government entities.
By automating the search for opportunities within state and local agencies, Pursuit aims to bridge the gap between innovative private sector solutions and the bureaucratic hurdles of the public procurement process.
