● Stotles is building the operating system for doing business with the government,
a notoriously difficult market for businesses to serve
● The funds will be used to expand at a time when interest in serving governments
is growing among businesses
● Round led by Headline with participation from Form Ventures, GTMFund,
Speedinvest, FJLabs, 7Percent and several prominent angels

22 June 2022
London, UK

Stotles, the UK startup building the operating system for doing business with
government, has raised a $6.5 million Seed investment round to accelerate product
development, grow its team, and expand into new markets.

The public sector is the biggest and most important buyer on the planet, and supplying it
can be lucrative. Just ask Microsoft and AWS, who fought ruthlessly over the US
government’s JEDI contract. More broadly, suppliers are finding immense opportunity in
helping the fight against climate change, where greater than 50% of annual global
spending flows from governments around the world.

But selling into governments comes with serious challenges.

“The business-to-government (B2G) market is the $12 trillion backbone of the global
economy. But, this market is in desperate need of some tender love and care,” says
Stotles CEO, John Witt.

“Every day, we see the painful friction buyers and suppliers have to deal with —
fragmented data, complex regulation, heavy compliance, messy workflows. Some call it
‘boring’, but they’re missing the point. This space has been overlooked for decades. By
streamlining the business processes that connect business and government, the
technology we’re building is capable of saving the world trillions every year – that’s
something we get excited about.”

Recognising that most suppliers aren’t equipped to deal with this unique landscape,
Stotles is streamlining the end-to-end journey for businesses working with governments.
It has started with a product that helps commercial teams boost their public sector sales
productivity.

Among a fast-growing customer base, leading companies like Workday, Tableau, and
Gitlab have adopted the Stotles platform. The current product serves commercial teams
such as sales, marketing, partner & alliance, and account management, by helping
them create a ‘single source of truth’ for public sector business development tasks and
data; find more relevant opportunities faster, pinpoint buying signals earlier (before
tender or RFP), and enable stronger qualification and faster prospect outreach with
market data tools and key contact sources – all while plugging seamlessly into their
existing workflow and tech stack.

Gearing up for growth

The new funds will be used to boost product development and expand the startup’s
Product and Commercial teams. Stotles will also expand into new segments of the
public sector and new locations beyond the UK.

The round was led by Headline with participation from Form Ventures, GTMFund,
Speedinvest, FJLabs, 7Percent and angels including prominent Berlin-based investor
Mathias HiIlpert.

Christian Miele, Partner at Headline and Chairman at the German Startups Association
sees nothing but potential in this space. “I hear it daily from the highest level of
governments: digitisation of public procurement is the single most important key to
unlocking the future of the global public sector. Stotles is the team to enable this
revolution globally and we couldn’t be more thrilled to back them.”

Despite an uncertain economy for startups, the founders are bullish about their
segment. When asked about fundraising, team-building, and growth in difficult
macroeconomic conditions, Carsten Schaltz, co-founder and CPO said,

“Governments will always need businesses, and this need will never go away. We’re solving
fundamental business problems and this gives us powerful momentum, recession or
boom. We’re excited to grow our world-class team over the coming months to solve
these problems better and faster than ever.”

“Stotles helps foster competition in the public-sector, thus driving better outcomes for
government, taxpayers, and every member of society. This society-level impact is
incredibly exciting and we can’t wait to do this at an even larger scale,” added Taj
Kamranpour co-founder and COO.

Jeroen Arts, Partner, Speedinvest’s Marketplaces & Consumer team, said: “Who said
working with the public sector can’t be fun and exciting? Over the past 1.5 years, Stotles
has helped top-tier companies like UiPath, Freshworks, and Workday do more business
with some of the world’s largest buyers. With this funding, John, Taj, and Carsten will be
able to further simplify and enhance public procurement to ensure that every penny of
taxpayer’s money yields the best returns.”

About Stotles: Stotles is a London-based B2B SaaS start-up founded by Taj Kamranpour (COO),
Carsten Schaltz (CPO), and John Witt (CEO). The founders met at London Business School,
with experience working in procurement and with public sector across North America, South
America, and Europe. The company’s name comes from Aristotle, based on the mantra “the
whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” Stotles is building the operating system acting as a
“single source of truth” to streamline the fragmented and unique data, processes, and workflows
used by suppliers to work with governments globally.