Arlington’s scoutbee nabbed $60M in Series B funding

scoutbee, a German developer of AI-powered supplier discovery tools for procurement pros, has secured $60 million in Series B funding. The company’s U.S. headquarters is based in Arlington, Virginia.

This latest funding round was led by new investor Atomico with participation from Lakestar and Next47 and existing investors, HV Holtzbrinck Ventures, 42CAP and Toba Capital. Founded in 2015, scoutbee reports raising $76 million in venture capital to date, which includes a $12 million Series A round that the company closed last June.

The fresh funding will go toward scoutbee’s research and development expansion, acquisition and customer growth and new hires. The startup has 120 staff across its Germany and Arlington offices, with plans to scale to 220 team members by the end of 2020, including new roles in sales, marketing, AI, engineering and machine learning.

scoutbee has raised $60M Series B investment in our mission to transform industries with AI-driven supplier discovery, working with new and existing investors, led by @Atomico. An exciting milestone in our journey. More here: https://t.co/BvXPGGyP6H

— Scoutbee (@scoutbeecompany) January 20, 2020

“Despite the deep challenges facing global procurement today, there is no other software platform trying to solve this issue as they are,” said a partner at Atomico, Hiro Tamura, in a statement. “Organizations can gain access to a far greater proportion of suppliers and then streamline them into a strategic RFP process, all within the platform. scoutbee is creating the intelligent, transparent, and equal procurement environment the world deserves.”

The company’s SaaS procurement platform is being used by more than 75 companies worldwide, including Audi, Airbus, Caterpillar and Bosch, a press release states. Gregor Stűhler, cofounder and managing director of scoutbee, said the company is aiming to save global companies $10 billion per year with its supplier discovery platform

“We will leverage every aspect of our combined instinct, expertise and passion to develop our products and capture new markets,” Stűhler said. “scoutbee as a solution is unrivaled in its specific capability for strategic scouting.”

We spot a few local sales, marketing and delivery jobs listed on the company’s site.