By Business & Finance 
Tony Corrigan, Founder, TenderScout
Enterprise Ireland has awarded TenderScout €300,000 in funding
Dublin-based tech company TenderScout, an SaaS tendering platform designed to help businesses win government tenders by identifying opportunities and improving the tendering process, has secured €1 million from private investors, angel funds and Enterprise Ireland.
The funding will create 15 new jobs in technology, customer service, and sales and marketing roles over the next two years.
Public procurement market worth $13 trillion globally – and €9 billion in Ireland alone
The public procurement budget in Ireland alone is worth €9 billion per annum, and yet only 10% of Irish SMEs compete for 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. He said:
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.
TenderScout gives SMEs the ability to participate in public tenders, regardless of their scale or tendering expertise. Its technology uses 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, said:
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.
TenderScout expanding into the US and Europe
European and US expansion is also on the cards in 2019 for TenderScout – the business already has a partnership with a bid consultancy organisation in Denmark, Fortem, supporting SMEs on public sector tenders.
