Oppex raises €1.2 Million for sales opportunities with the public sector


    With Alibaba in the news for the largest IPO of all time, it’s clear that connecting people that need things with people that do things is a powerful position to be in. Alibaba is the clear leader in the “real” world, but what about the public sector?

    “The figure is astonishing and difficult to even understand,” says Ville Heinonen, Co-Founder & CEO at Oppex. “Every year 10,000 billion dollars of taxpayers’ money is transferred to companies. The public sector, controlled by both local and national governments, buys all kinds of goods and services including everything from multi-billion dollar construction and IT projects to very niche products such as fire engines or swords.”

    To help connect businesses to these opportunities Helsinki-based Oppex has built a global search engine and has today announced a $1.5 million seed funding led by Alma Media, startup accelerator Veturi, Tekes, and seven angel investors.

    In their beta they’ve managed to bring plenty of parties together. On the demand side the company has more than 4,000 users from 120 countries including SMEs as well as larger corporations like Samsung, Abbot, and Roche who are digging through these lists. And on the public sector side they’ve gathered a database of 3.5 million public sector tenders, growing at more than a million new tenders every year. According to the company, Oppex is already the world’s largest source of tenders.

    “We all live in a world in which the public sector controls a major share of economic activity. All companies want to sell more, and our mission is to help companies find new business in the public sector – globally.“ says Ville Heinonen, Co-Founder & CEO at Oppex.