A Tampa technology startup looking to streamline the credential process has raised $4.6 million, totaling more than $8 million since it officially launched.
Professional Credentials Exchange launched in 2018 and received $3.5 million in April 2020. Founder Anthony Begando used that funding to take the product to commercialization, which became official in February.
Five months later, he's sealed in another funding deal. The latest was co-led by Michigan-based Spectrum Health Ventures and Nashville-based Martin Ventures. According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange and Commission, 27 investors participated.
"We've got some pretty big customers, real big," Begando said in an interview with Tampa Bay Inno. "In all my years as a founder — and this is my ninth startup — I've never had as much early interest as this."
Begando's company is a digital marketplace for verified professional credentials. He launched it after spending two decades in consulting. During that time, he realized no matter how efficient or how much automation is involved, some credentials will take weeks or months to procure.
"What we're feeling is the industry is just begging for solutions to improve this process," he said. "While we’re not the answer to all the problems, our focus is making data more accessible and reducing the redundancy. We lock the data down and people can rely on it and not second guess it."
The $4.6 million raise is part of a larger $5 million total seed round, which Begando expects to close soon. A seed round is smaller and generally leads to larger rounds, called Series A, Series B and so on. The funding will largely go toward helping the company's now 23 clients onboard to the platform.
"Now, we have an extremely large group of members that are all large organizations, and are using the funding get them onboarded into the exchange," he said. "It's pulling millions of records for them; and with a huge health insurance company, that's not a two-week process."
The funding will also help the company drive a stronger revenue, which will be crucial when Begando seeks a Series A funding next year for an undisclosed amount. He also expects to add roughly five more employees to the company's already 15-person workforce by the end of the year.
The company has a focus on the health care industry for the next two years, Begando said, and will then turn toward any industry with credentialing needs.
"With any regulated industry, credentialing is a requirement for commercial and employment activity — you've got oil and gas, aviation," he said. "We've created an ability to contribute and share information to reduce the time it takes to execute the processes. Today, everyone performs that work in silos and we’re creating a way to break down those silos."
