Announcing GovWell’s $4.5M Seed Round To Modernize Government Services
Today, we’re thrilled to announce that GovWell raised a $4.5M Seed round led by Work-Bench with participation from existing investor Bienville Capital. This funding is a huge leap forward for our mission to help governments serve communities better with modern software.
My co-founder Ben and I are incredibly grateful for the support of our early customers, employees, and investors. Thank you - we could not have gotten this far without your support.
We wanted to use this opportunity to share some thoughts on how we got here, and where we’re going next.
How we got here
We the people (and taxpayers) deserve effective government. America’s 80,000+ local government agencies spend $1.8 trillion annually to administer essential services, but service quality lags far beyond the rest of the economy. You can buy anything on Amazon or order an Uber with one click, but renewing a driver’s license, getting a permit, or accessing unemployment benefits is a painful and confusing ordeal. Citizens demand digital accessibility and transparency in a post-COVID world, but they aren’t getting it from their municipal or county government. As a result, we are losing trust in government to provide critical services.
This problem is personal for us. More than 60% of our founding team has direct experience working for or with government. Growing up, Ben worked with his dad, a self-employed general contractor, and struggled to get permits quickly from local governments to build new homes. I studied government in college and graduate school, and while working in the U.S. Senate saw how services affecting millions of people rely on antiquated software.
In the last year, we’ve met with thousands of public servants from our nation’s cities, counties, and special-purpose districts who work hard and care deeply about their communities. Unfortunately, the software powering services for many agencies is decades old, creating unnecessary inefficiencies. In 2024, modern software is essential for administering complex services. We urgently need to update our government’s tech stack.
Right now, local governments have few alternatives. Consulting firms and legacy software companies extract rents from taxpayers without delivering the innovations we urgently need. Public sector initiative like the United States Digital Service are a step in the right direction, but only a for-profit company can attract the caliber of technical talent and make the investments necessary to drive impact at scale.
We started GovWell to do just that by committing top talent to modernizing government services. Since our founding in April 2023, we’ve launched our first product to automate core workflows for municipalities and counties, such as permitting and licensing. We currently serve more than a dozen government agencies in 7 states representing 200,000+ citizens. Customers are seeing as much as a 90% reduction in time to renew licenses, issue permits, and conduct inspections. And we are just getting started.
Where we’re going
With our new $4.5M in funding, we are going to stay focused on two objectives that are essential to achieving our mission.
1) Build a world class team of mission-oriented technologists.
At GovWell, you can serve your country while working at a high-growth tech company. We are headquartered in New York City, and are always looking for exceptional talent to join our engineering, customer success, and sales teams. Check out our open roles here.
2) Build an exceptional product that drives value for our customers and communities.
We are investing the majority of our new funding in product development. Our near-term goal is to make GovWell the most capable, configurable, reliable, and secure platform for municipal and county agencies to automate core processes.
The customer experience goes beyond the software itself. We will make large investments in customer success and support to ensure every customer has a phenomenal experience and can use GovWell to its full potential.
If you are interested in how GovWell can benefit your community, book a demo with us here.
