Procuretech startup Contingent has today raised about €7.4 million for its supplier insight platform that is transforming procurement processes.
The round was led by Octopus Ventures, one of Europe’s largest and most active early-stage investors with participation from Connect Ventures, Concentric, Seedcamp, Ascension, and Working Capital Innovation Fund.
Founded in 2020 in London, Contingent was created, designed and built by a team of financial risk technology veterans and AI researchers with one objective in mind – to fundamentally change procurement processes for the better.
Tai Alegbe, Co-Founder and CEO of Contingent, explained: “The typical questionnaire process to onboard suppliers is widely accepted to be fundamentally broken. A huge amount of buyer and seller time and resources are wasted in collecting information from suppliers, most of which is rarely read. It’s hard to spot risks, with companies reliant on supplier self-certification, and with no time or information to verify claims.”
Fred Ellis, Investor, Octopus Ventures, added: “All over the world, companies are re-thinking how and where they procure goods and services. Supply chains are becoming more interconnected, global, dynamic, and unpredictable, increasing the risk of supply disruption, and associated financial losses.”
Despite being core to how all businesses operate, there is far too much friction in the process of procuring goods and services, and companies are often left unaware of the potential risks accompanying their decisions. This is where Contingent is disrupting the status quo, helping companies reduce friction and increase resilience while empowering procurement teams to make the right choices and partner more closely with the wider business.
Contingent’s platform is easy to use and simple to set up, and its lightweight and proactive real-time insights tool fits seamlessly into an organisation’s existing procurement workflow and technology ecosystem – providing the answers a team needs to act when they need them. The SaaS platform is able to offer a quick, complete, up-to-date analysis of suppliers and businesses, thereby helping firms comply with regulation, reducing third-party risk exposure, and improving team efficiency.
Tai Alegbe added: “Teams want to invest their time and energy in understanding whether the product or service can meet their goals, not on whether the supplier meets internal or external requirements.”
Contingent’s global customer base has been growing at over 10x p.a. and the platform is used by procurement and supply chain teams at companies such as Monzo, Seagate, Huel, Barratt Developments plc, and HM Government. Today, the Contingent platform covers a wide range of insight domains to meet procurement, third party risk and regulatory requirements around financial stability, ownership, legal, compliance, quality, cyber, and ESG (Environmental, Social & Governance).
The funding will be used to continue building out Contingent’s suite of modular SaaS applications, with a particular focus on meeting the growing demand for more transparent and ethical supply chains. In addition, with strong global demand for its services, the company is actively looking to expand into the US and across Europe and will be rapidly hiring into its product, engineering, and commercial teams over the coming months.
Rory Stirling, Partner, Connect Ventures, said: “Procurement and supply chain management have been overlooked for too long, served by clunky, legacy technology. An exciting ecosystem of cloud tools connected by APIs is emerging and there’s a huge opportunity to improve the status quo, and recognise the procurement team as the heroes they are. We’re excited to continue backing Contingent and the role they will play in developing this space.”
