B2Gnow Attracts Investment from Polaris Growth Fund, Adds Chief Revenue Officer

Supplier diversity management software leader B2Gnow partners with Polaris Growth Fund for strategic growth investment and appoints Ryan Kelly as CRO

Online PR News – 28-January-2021 – Phoenix, AZ – B2Gnow, the market leader in SaaS government supplier diversity program management solutions, has secured a strategic growth investment from the Polaris Growth Fund (PGF). PGF is a software-focused, specialized affiliate fund of Polaris Partners, a Boston-based private investment firm with two decades of technology investing experience.

With over one million users and hundreds of thousands of diverse vendors, B2Gnow monitors $ trillion in contracts on behalf of its more than 300 federal, state, local, health care, education, and utility clients. The purpose-built platform allows administrators to manage the complex compliance and regulatory requirements of supplier diversity programs while realizing substantial gains in automation and data integrity, which ultimately facilitates meaningful increases in spending with disadvantaged firms with positive economic impact in communities across the country.

Justin Talbot-Stern, Chief Executive Officer of B2Gnow, said “This exciting partnership with Polaris will allow us to further expand the reach and impact of B2Gnow’s industry leading solution to agencies across the country and drive substantial benefits to disadvantaged firms. Even in the middle of a global pandemic and major economic crisis that is disproportionately impacting small businesses, the B2Gnow platform facilitates their efforts to obtain disadvantaged business certification credentials (i.e. MBE, WBE, DBE, etc.) and win business.” Frank Begalke, Chief Operating Officer, added that “B2Gnow is the sought after ‘level playing field’ solution that empowers agencies to accomplish their program objectives and comply with mandatory regulations.” Talbot-Stern and Begalke will continue to lead the company and serve on its Board of Directors.

To help spearhead its accelerated growth plan the Company appointed Ryan Kelly as Chief Revenue Officer. Kelly brings over 15 years of experience as an executive in high growth SaaS businesses with a particular emphasis on the intersection of government, technology, and compliance.

“B2Gnow has transformed the supplier diversity program landscape by combining deep domain expertise with innovation to deliver automation and amplification to resource-constrained agencies. Together with Justin and Frank, we are grateful for the opportunity to support B2G and expand the footprint of its market-leading platform” said Dan Lombard, a Partner at PGF who will join the Board of Directors. “As a solution that enhances both the impact and efficiency of its agency clients, B2Gnow represents a uniquely compelling offering in an important and growing category. We are excited to add Ryan and help drive the accelerated adoption of the Company’s products” said Sabrina Chiasson McLaughry, a Vice President at PGF who will also join the Board of Directors.

About B2Gnow
Founded in 1999, B2Gnow is the most comprehensive and widely utilized supplier diversity management software solution in the United States. B2Gnow is utilized by hundreds of government, education, and private sector organizations that manage over one million vendors on the platform. The B2Gnow cloud-based solution allows organizations to track the participation, utilization and contracting details of disadvantaged businesses, such as minority business enterprises and women businesses enterprises. B2Gnow maintains the single largest database of disadvantaged business entities in North America, helping the federal government, more than half of the state governments, and hundreds of counties, cities, airports, and Fortune 500 companies manage their supplier diversity programs through technology solutions. The modular platform addresses all aspects of supplier management on the diversity and compliance spectrum. For more information visit https://b2gnow.com.

About Polaris
Polaris Growth Fund is a software-focused, specialized affiliate fund of Polaris Partners, a Boston-based private investment firm with two decades of technology and healthcare investing experience. Polaris has offices in Boston, San Francisco and New York. For more information visit http://www.polarisgrowthfund.com