Businesses typically have several hoops to jump through when it comes to procuring the goods and services they need to function. Everything from finding the right supplier to navigating complicated regulatory environments has largely been done manually through emails and spreadsheets. ORO, an enterprise software company, aims to resolve this pain point for businesses after securing a $25 million funding round.
ORO develops workflows designed to automate end-to-end procurement across teams. With use cases across financial services, life sciences and manufacturing, ORO offers workflow solutions for fraud prevention, vendor management, supplier payments and more. Its Series A capital, co-led by Norwest Venture Partners and B Capital, will go in part toward expanding its workflow offerings.
“A simple thing like [the] onboarding of [a] supplier takes months, weeks, months. After you spend all the time onboarding a supplier so that you can work with them, one year later, nobody can answer the simple question, ‘Why does this supplier even exist in our system?’ The whole trail is lost,” Sudhir Bhojwani, ORO’s co-founder and CEO, told Built In. “The reason you need to automate these processes ... is it reduces the burden on companies and it allows them to move faster because some of these suppliers can have a direct impact on the outcome of your company results.”
In today’s era, companies tend to be fast-paced and have decentralized purchasing practices, according to ORO. In the interest of quick growth, conflicts tend to arise with the need for controls and compliance checks. Wider spread purchasing also makes it harder to keep track of which suppliers can be used for a particular service.
Tracking this information and establishing supplier relationships is essential for businesses to gain a competitive advantage, according to Lalitha Rajagopalan, ORO’s co-founder and head of strategy. To facilitate this, ORO will put its fresh funding toward expanding into new workflows like supplier diversity and verification. The company’s mission is to become the customer relationship management solution for suppliers.
“If you look at the technology world, CRM tools are built around the customer object. It’s all about getting a richer, deeper, clearer view of the customer persona, whereas the procurement side — which is literally the other side of the coin — is all about transactions,” Rajagopalan told Built In. “Understanding the supplier in a rich, deep way will only happen when the supplier relationships start to matter.”
Founded in 2020, ORO has grown its product to the point where it can serve large enterprise customers who want to implement workflow to support globally distributed needs, according to Bhojwani. Today, ORO customers include two Fortune 100 companies and several midsize businesses, such as Optimizely and Iovance Biotherapeutics.
ORO plans to grow its customer base with its new capital, particularly in the life sciences, chemical and manufacturing sectors. It’s also investing in its sales team to support this expansion and further its product with additional workflow offerings.
