TenderScout €1M Backing sees European and US Expansion and 15 Jobs Fifteen new jobs are to be created in technology, customer service, and sales and marketing roles with Enterprise Ireland backed Irish start-up
TenderScout, in the next two years.
€1m has been secured from private investors and angel funds, with a pipeline of further investment in place. The Dublin-based tech company has had €300k backing from
Enterprise Ireland.
European and US expansion is also on the cards in 2019 for the successful TenderScout business, a technology platform that helps firms win Government business by identifying new business opportunity and improving the tendering process.
The business already has a partnership with a bid consultancy organisation in Denmark, Fortem, supporting SMEs on public sector tenders. The core problem TenderScout solves, according to its founder Tony Corrigan, is that globally SMEs are missing out on revenues from the public procurement market worth $13 Trillion.
“Around 90% of SMEs don’t participate at all in public tendering because they lack the expertise to compete and decide it’s too hard or time-consuming and generally inaccessible to small business”, the TenderScout founder says.
The Irish company gives SMEs the ability to participate in public tenders, regardless of their scale or tendering expertise. Its innovative solution uses state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms to qualify tender opportunities for SMEs, giving information on the tender competitions they have the best opportunity of succeeding in, given their capabilities and the level of competition.
Niall McEvoy, High Potential Start-ups, Enterprise Ireland says Enterprise Ireland supports innovative Irish companies like TenderScout that have real potential to realise their global ambition by expanding into new markets and growing business.
“TenderScout is an excellent example of an indigenous company that has identified a need within the SME sector and addressed it effectively. This SaaS offering allows businesses to grow their market and increase productivity and efficiency in a cost-effective manner. Enterprise Ireland has worked with Tenderscout since 2014, and we look forward to supporting to them through their next phase of growth”, the Enterprise Ireland manager says.
Increased Revenue, Decreased Cost
The public procurement budget in Ireland alone is worth €9 billion per annum, and yet only 10% of Irish SMEs compete for tenders in what is essentially the largest sales pipeline in the country.
TenderScout clients are achieving success rates of over 50% and as high as 90% in some cases. The beta platform is now used daily by over 100 companies, having started with 24 clients in 2016. For current customers, it has increased revenues by 15-20% and reduced pre-sales costs by 30-50%.
The SaaS business model (software as a service) optimises every step of the tendering lifecycle from opportunity identification via public portals, through collaborator selection in some case, to proposal delivery using expert bid writers.
Customers pay annual subscriptions ranging from €12,000 to €50,000 to access the portal and associated services. Sectors featuring strongly in the client base include digital marketing, recruitment, software development, and facilities management.
Since launching its beta programme, the company has achieved MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue) of €50,000 in 14 months. TenderScout is growing at around 10% month on month and has generated €1.5M since foundation. Between 2017 and 2018, revenues have grown 100%.
More accessible public tendering means SMEs can realise new revenues and grow, while Governments reap the benefits of increased supplier diversity and innovation, Tony Corrigan says.
“Essentially, we simplify Government contracting opportunities for small and medium businesses, saving them time trawling through tender alert lists and figuring out their likelihood of winning the contract”, he adds.
