Starbridge, an AI-powered platform helping companies unlock revenue in government and education markets, announced it has raised $42 million in Series A funding led by Craft Ventures. The funding will accelerate product development, hiring, and customer expansion as the company builds out its platform to make public sector sales more accessible and efficient for businesses of all sizes.
Founded by Justin Wenig, who previously co-founded Coursedog out of Y Combinator in 2019, Starbridge was created to address the deep inefficiencies that have long discouraged startups and enterprises from engaging with the public sector. Wenig observed that while most technology companies avoided selling to government or education customers due to complex procurement processes, the real challenge was the lack of modern infrastructure to support public-private partnerships.
Starbridge’s AI-driven go-to-market intelligence platform allows sales teams to monitor hundreds of thousands of agencies and schools in real time for bids, meetings, contract expirations, budgets, grants, and key contacts. By surfacing opportunities well before traditional RFP cycles, Starbridge empowers companies to engage proactively and strategically with the public sector.
Already adopted by over 160 enterprise sales teams, including Instructure, SimpliGov, and Clever, the platform helps identify opportunities, contacts, and tailored outreach strategies instantly. Its natural-language search capabilities enable users to query data conversationally. For example, typing “Show me cities struggling with street cleanliness” and instantly receiving relevant municipalities, associated officials, and contact strategies.
Users report that Starbridge’s insights have dramatically improved sales productivity. According to one account executive, the platform’s contextual intelligence “4x’ed our response rate,” helping their team reach decision-makers with more authentic, data-informed outreach.
The new funding round will allow Starbridge to scale its AI capabilities, expand its dataset coverage, and continue recruiting top engineering and go-to-market talent to serve businesses selling into the public sector.
KEY QUOTES
“At the root of why companies avoided working with the public sector was a broken infrastructure for supporting public-private partnerships. We’re fixing that. The consequences of avoiding these markets are huge—entrepreneurs get discouraged, innovation stalls, and taxpayers pay more for less.”
“Starbridge’s AI-powered platform enables public sector sales teams to monitor hundreds of thousands of agencies and schools in real time, transforming how they identify opportunities and engage with decision-makers. Our goal is to catalyze a new era of public-private partnerships that change the world for the better.”
Justin Wenig, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Starbridge
