Evaluating and monitoring your company’s suppliers is critical and incredibly complicated. Contingent comes to the rescue, armed with a freshly printed $8.2 million check from investors. The SaaS platform helps companies purchase more strategically and better manage supply chain risk and compliance.
“It is generally accepted that the typical questionnaire process for onboard suppliers is fundamentally broken. An enormous amount of buyers and sellers’ time and resources is wasted gathering information from suppliers, most of which is rarely read,” said Tai Alegbe, Co-Founder and CEO of Contingent. “It is difficult to recognize risks, with companies relying on supplier self-certification and without the time or information to verify claims.”
The company addresses many compliance, supply chain, and supplier challenges and identifies potential risks.
“The company was founded quite some time ago. It built on insights I had gained from previous experiences, in and around third party risk, supply chain and procurement. In previous companies, it became really clear that there were common themes and challenges that companies had to deal with,” explains Alegbe. “The supply chain is a particularly acute challenge for today’s world. That applies to almost all companies and also to governments.”
The company aims to address many different categories of business risk, with the ultimate goal of increasing the resilience of the companies it works with. The company looks at risk from a supply perspective, resilience from a financial and corporate social responsibility (CSR) and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) perspective. It also wants to focus on sustainability as part of the process. All in all, the company looks at the actual risks that customers run in order to be able to deliver their product or service.
“At the heart of it we are building a new category. We believe that supply chain and procurement as a function will evolve radically in the next 5-10 years, with companies choosing suppliers based on their values…that companies will choose to do business with other companies that align with their values, rather than simply their capabilities and costs,” predicts Alegbe. “And as a result, we see that as an emerging new category that conforms to design. We see ourselves as the core of that shift and we can really help companies embrace that change.”
The round was led by Octopus Ventures, with participation from Connect Ventures, Concentric, Seedcamp, Ascension and Working Capital Innovation Fund. This brings the company’s total funding to date to $11 million, with previous investments led by Connect Ventures. Contingent claims its global customer base has grown by more than 10x and its platform is used by procurement and supply chain teams at a star-studded list of companies including Monzo, Seagate, Huel, Barratt Developments plc and the UK government.
This post Contingent focuses on broken procurement processes – TechCrunch
was original published at “https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/28/contingent-fundraise/”
