#StartupsEverywhere Profile: Sedale Turbovsky, Founder and CEO, OpenGrants
This profile is part of #StartupsEverywhere, an ongoing series highlighting startup leaders in ecosystems across the country. This interview has been edited for length, content, and clarity.
Increasing Access to Public Funding Opportunities
Located in the Sacramento region, OpenGrants is a new startup that’s working to provide equitable access to public funding through the use of software and data products. We recently spoke with Sedale Turbovsky—OpenGrants’ founder and CEO—to learn more about his startup’s work, his concerns about public funding transparency, and what federal agencies can do to further promote entrepreneurial engagement.
Can you tell us a little about yourself? What is your background?
I am a serial entrepreneur. I started a company called Guerrilla Digital about seven years ago that morphed from a full-service digital agency into a kind of startup studio. We were lucky enough to have some investors in our first company, CarbonBLU, and we were able to scale up. It was a Sacramento-based SaaS company selling into the government space that used software we developed, and we were able to effectively sell that company back to the strategic investment partner.
OpenGrants is the latest project that we’re focused on. We have deep experience in government tech and we’re very passionate about solving real problems. That was always our goal. We want to solve real-world problems and work in places like policy and clean tech to help improve people’s lives.
Tell us more about OpenGrants. What is the work that you’re doing?
The vision of OpenGrants is to establish a single source of truth for government funding and to increase accessibility, equity, and transparency in the public funding space. Public funding is kind of a mess right now. It’s really difficult to engage with agencies because they’re so big, and the left hand frequently doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. And despite their best efforts, agencies don’t have the tools or wherewithal to engage startups non-profits, and underrepresented groups with any level of efficacy.
So the idea behind OpenGrants is to really give startups, underrepresented groups, and nonprofits the tools they need to engage these agencies in a transparent way. We know there’s often a lot of red tape on the agency side, so we’ve built this platform so companies can quickly and efficiently locate opportunities. We also match companies with opportunities, so instead of having to search for certain grants we use machine learning and natural language processing to reinterpret agency data and match it to the right candidate.
In the next quarter we’re rolling out a tool that we liken to TurboTax, except for grant management. We’re unraveling the complex administrative and regulatory implications of public funding in an easy to use interface. We provide our users with an assurance that they will be able to manage their funding properly, and manage their reporting in a way that doesn’t eat up a ton of their budget. So the entirety of the platform is this single place where you can go get matched to available public funding, and manage that funding right there in the platform.
How is OpenGrants working to increase the diversity of public funding recipients?
One of the things that we’ll be tackling as we scale out in the next two quarters will be addressing diversity using our data products. One of the cool things about the platform and the grant management modules within the platform is that it allows us to deliver aggregate data around where money is being deployed. The only tools that the government has now are focused on understanding the full economic impact of deployed capital. But they don’t tell the whole story, and they certainly don’t deliver real-time aggregate data about ecosystems and economies.
This platform at scale will allow us to do really clear analysis around diversity, and then publish those kinds of stats for the agencies. It will allow us to empower groups that are working on policies with real-time data about where public money is being deployed and how it’s being used in underserved communities.
What makes Sacramento’s startup community unique?
The state government is located in Sacramento, which gives us a unique insight into how California agencies work. It’s given us the opportunity to collaborate with state agencies, which we’ve done. We’ve also been able to participate in—and offer comments on— the legislative process.
As a startup working in these spaces that we feel strongly about, it’s been a huge opportunity for us to be able to meet with our congressman, meet with the state agencies that are deploying capital, and access resources from local universities like CSU Sacramento and UC Davis.
What startup issues do you believe should receive more attention from state and federal policymakers?
The big ones are transparency and accessibility for government data. The government really shoots itself in the foot if they don’t fully understand—and don’t have the capacity to fully understand—how technology could improve the citizen experience. They spend quite a bit of money on studies from consulting firms which have their place, but don’t offer the same innovative insights that you get from the startup community.
There are some great entrepreneur residency programs popping up across the country, but a lot more could be done to encourage agencies to engage with these entrepreneurs and startups. They need to start adjusting their procurement processes and build special processes for startups that frequently don’t understand how to engage with government agencies.
In the current government environment you get startups who run from government contracts instead of approaching them with a sense of excitement. It’s unique to us because we know how to navigate that space, but there are plenty of startups who—on the advice of their investors—won’t engage with the government. The government should be ashamed of this and understand that this is something they should rectify quickly in order to take advantage of the technology that’s available.
What is your goal for OpenGrants moving forward?
Our vision is a future where OpenGrants is the platform for public funding. We want to be the network for capital deployment, and we want to help the government have more capital efficiency in their deployed resources and understand their stakeholders more efficiently.
One of the worst things I’ve seen is what we call stranded assets here in California, where one agency will fund something on the thought or prayer that another agency might also fund a complementary service. You get these cool projects that are sitting in the ground rotting because they’re not able to be utilized because the rest of the funding package never showed up or because some other agency decided that wasn’t a priority. Our goal is to reduce waste and improve transparency, accessibility, and equity in the public funding space.
We are currently in open beta for users in the state of California, so we invite anyone to come check it out if they want to sign up on the website, we’d love to hear their feedback. We will be scaling across the nation over the years, so we’re looking forward to engaging folks as we move along.
All of the information in this profile was accurate at the date and time of publication.
Engine works to ensure that policymakers look for insight from the startup ecosystem when they are considering programs and legislation that affect entrepreneurs. Together, our voice is louder and more effective. Many of our lawmakers do not have first-hand experience with the country's thriving startup ecosystem, so it’s our job to amplify that perspective. To nominate a person, company, or organization to be featured in our #StartupsEverywhere series, email edward@engine.is.
