OpenGov raises $25M, adds Marc Andreessen to its board

OpenGov uses cloud technology to bring efficiency and transparency to government

Historically, government data has been siloed and locked away in legacy enterprise systems that are difficult to learn, hard to access, and expensive to maintain. Many governments maintain different documents for different fiscal years on different department web pages. Decentralized and siloed information can be confusing for constituents and challenging for internal staff communication.

OpenGo, which allows local governments to bring their data to the cloud, is looking to finally solve this problem. And now it has an additional $25 million to make that happen, it announced on Thursday.

The oversubscribed funding round included existing investors Formation 8 Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive Capital, and AITV, as well as new investors Glynn Capital, Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary's Sound Ventures, and Intuit founder Scott Cook.

Andreessen Horowitz led OpenGov’s $15 million Series B round last year. In total, OpenGov has raised $48 million in funding.

Founded in 2012, the Redwood City-based OpenGov was founded on the premise that technology can transform governing. They provide financial management and transparency software to governments. Basically, they make it easy to play with and visualize all the budget and spending data for local government customers.

"The OpenGov platform equips government administrators with the tools they need to compare data across departments and other governments, monitor financial operations and performance metrics, measure budget to actual expenditures, and streamline the budgeting process. Unlocking access to this information leads to improved operational efficiency, years of time saved, and, ultimately, better policy decisions," Zac Bookman, OpenGov Co-Founder and CEO, told me in an interview.

For example, before OpenGov, a Fire Chief that needed data on overtime spending would have had to request a report from an already-backlogged analyst trained in querying ERP systems.

“It might even be days before they have the information they need,” Bookman said. “With OpenGov, the Fire Chief can access the information she needs, instantly and at any time without having to run a complicated query."

OpenGov's customers include small, medium and large cities; counties, special districts, universities and various agencies. 1 in 5 cities in California use OpenGov and 1 in 3 counties in the State. THe company also recently announced a partnership with the State Treasurer of Ohio to bring OpenGov to every governing entity in the state, all 3,962 of them, the first 114 of which just went live a few weeks ago.

It has more than doubled its customer base since the beginning of the year. It now works with more than 500 governments in 44 states.

"Customers report saving hundreds of hours of staff time both on internal financial reporting and responding to information requests from the public, and an increase in public engagement surrounding the budget," said Bookman.

The City of Simi Valley, for example, reported that increased budget transparency reduced public information requests, saving the city $10,000 annually. The OpenGov platform can also help governments save millions on financing by improving their bond ratings.

"OpenGov is the market leader in performance intelligence and financial transparency for governments," Bookman told me. "Nobody else can combine the tools, data, and network that are required to enhance day-to-day efficiency, put financial and performance insights directly at the fingertips of decision-makers at all levels of government, and improve their operations and decision-making by leveraging data from their peers."

The company will use the new funding to add headcount to its 70 person team across all departments including engineering, product and design, marketing, sales and customer success.

​​"We are focused on building and refining the OpenGov platform. In addition to building tools that help our customers do their jobs more efficiently, we are focused on ways our growing network can help governments understand their performance,  lower costs, and improve their spending power," said Bookman.

In addition to the funding round, the company also announced that Marc Andreessen is joining the company’s Board of Directors.

"As a member of the Board of Directors, Marc will help guide the company’s mission and provide advice on the company’s growth,” Bookman told me. “He is an active, participating member of nine other Boards, including Facebook and HP.”