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Scout RFP secures USD2.75m in funding from NEA, Google Ventures, and Zapis Capital

Scout RFP, a cloud-based sourcing platform, has raised USD2.75 million in seed financing led by venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA), with participation from Google Ventures and Zapis Capital.

Angel investors Techammer & Tim O'Shaughnessy also participated. 

The funding will be used to grow the company's engineering team and scale the product for their enterprise customers. Chetan Puttagunta, Partner at NEA, will join Scout RFP's board of directors.

Scout RFP was built to help enterprises run more efficient sourcing events by taking care of the many manual tasks associated with requests for proposals (RFPs), inviting suppliers to participate in bidding and the subsequent collection of responses. This complex process includes ensuring vendors fill forms out correctly, Q&A management, bid collection, bid compilation, attachment/file management, compliance management, and numerous other tasks that are frequently tedious and time-intensive.

Company buyers can launch projects in the Scout tool within minutes of signing up since Scout's platform does not require installation or training. Additionally, bid setup is incorporated into a simple one-page design, resulting in navigational ease for users.

Review and analysis becomes considerably easier since data is centralised and buyers can automatically see a side-by-side comparison. The Scout tool can be used by a single buyer or by teams with up to 1000+ users. The system's audit trail logs every user's involvement during a sourcing event and ensures the data is preserved for the future.

"We have been on both sides of numerous RFPs/RFIs/RFQs and can safely say that the current process is heavily managed via email, Excel, Word, and phone," says Stan Garber, President & Co-founder of Scout RFP. "Before we decided to build this product, we spent six months talking to hundreds of purchasing professionals to validate their pain points. Once we confirmed our frustration was also felt by the industry at large, we got busy developing Scout."

"The Scout team has developed a unique solution that simplifies the complexities of running sourcing events for enterprises with an incredibly easy to use interface," says Chetan Puttagunta, Partner at NEA. "We are excited at the opportunity to partner with the team as they transform the massive enterprise sourcing space." 

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