Bonfire emerges with North America’s fastest growing public sector buyer/supplier network

GTY Technology Holdings Inc., a GI Partners portfolio company and leading provider of cloud-based solutions for the public sector, has acquired one of North America’s fastest growing public sector bid marketplaces DemandStar, to further strengthen its presence in government procurement. DemandStar will merge under GTY’s Bonfire business unit, to address growing demands by government agencies to improve supplier outreach, competition and diversity.

“With the acquisition of DemandStar, we have assembled two leading companies in their field to deliver the most robust eProcurement solution to address the increasingly critical function that government procurement teams play within the agencies and communities they serve,” said TJ Parass, CEO of GTY Technology Inc. “This acquisition sets the precedent for future mergers and acquisitions initiated by GTY as we continue to focus on expanding the breadth and depth of our portfolio across public administration and civic engagement.”

Today, DemandStar is a public sector online marketplace that provides over 1,300 agencies a place to post RFP and bid opportunities for free, then surfaces those bids to their large network of suppliers to generate competitive bids and best outcomes. Bonfire offers a robust eProcurement solution to manage the entire end-to-end sourcing and procurement processes and workflows and is trusted by more than 650 government agencies across North America.

In the future, Bonfire and DemandStar businesses will merge to offer a complete portfolio of cloud-based procurement solutions to both state and local public agencies of any size or requirement. Together, DemandStar and Bonfire hold a customer footprint of over 1,900 state and local buying agencies – one of the largest in North America – and will offer government buyers access to a combined network of over 500,000 suppliers.

“GTY Technology has a proven track record of bringing together incredible companies and building them up. We are excited to join the team as we all work to provide better processes and outcomes for government,” said Ben Vaught, CEO at DemandStar. “Bonfire is one of the most trusted eProcurement solution providers in the market and by joining forces we can deliver even more value to public agencies.”

Government procurement teams face a tremendous amount of pressure due to a multitude of new challenges. “The Great Resignation” has led to fewer resources in public procurement, while at the same time, project volumes are increasing, in line with federal funding in many sectors. Additionally, there is a growing priority to support historically disadvantaged businesses. These market demands impact every government agency procurement team across North America and require solutions, such as the GTY platform of companies, to address them.

For suppliers currently utilizing DemandStar, this acquisition by GTY will create more opportunity to access government bids. In future, suppliers will have access to one of the largest networks for state and local government bid opportunities, conveniently from one source.

To learn more about the Bonfire eProcurement solution and the DemandStar public bid portal, visit www.gobonfire.com and www.demandstar.com, respectively.

DemandStar

DemandStar builds communities by connecting government agencies quickly and efficiently with quality suppliers of all sizes. Founded in 1998, they pioneered the online marketplace concept for bidding on government contracts and now serve as the gateway for public sector partnerships between government agencies and suppliers both locally and nationally throughout the United States. For more information, or for government agencies and suppliers interested in joining the DemandStar procurement network, please visit www.DemandStar.com or call (206) 940-0305.

Bonfire

Bonfire is a business unit of GTY Technology Holdings Inc. and a leader in strategic sourcing and procurement software. Bonfire empowers organizations to find the right vendors and make the right purchasing decisions with ease and confidence. With tools to support the entire vendor lifecycle (sourcing, contract management, and vendor performance), Bonfire goes beyond traditional mechanics of standard procurement suites to make complex decision-making easy. The combination of flexible technology and world-class customer service makes Bonfire the solution of choice for both public and private sector organizations. Bonfire is an award-winning solution recognized by Gartner, GovTech, Spend Matters, Best in SaaS, Deloitte Fast 50™, and the International Business Awards.

GTY Technology Holdings Inc.

GTY Technology (GTY) brings leading cloud software together to deliver modern solutions for state and local governments, education institutions and healthcare organizations. More than 3,000 agencies across North America leverage GTY solutions to deliver better outcomes for their constituents by improving the way they engage stakeholders and manage their resources. Built for the public sector, the intuitive suite of solutions supports the policy, regulation and compliance requirements unique to the public sector. Public Administrative solutions for budgeting (Questica and Sherpa), grants management (eCivis) and procurement solutions for both government buyers and suppliers (Bonfire) and (DemandStar) to modernize the end-to-end sourcing process and improve efficiency, transparency and collaboration. Civic Engagement solutions for payments (CityBase) and permits (OpenCounter) deliver efficiencies while improving citizen access and satisfaction. To learn more about the GTY platform and the positive impact it has on the people and communities it serves visit: www.gtytechnology.com.

GI Partners

Founded in 2001, GI Partners is a private investment firm with over 140 employees and offices in San Francisco, New York, Dallas, Chicago, Greenwich, Scottsdale, and London. The firm has assets under management totaling $35 billion and invests on behalf of leading institutional investors around the world through its private equity, real estate, and data infrastructure strategies. The private equity strategy invests primarily in companies in the healthcare, services, and software sectors. The real estate strategy focuses primarily on technology and life sciences properties as well as other specialized types of real estate. The data infrastructure strategy invests primarily in hard asset infrastructure businesses underpinning the digital economy. For more information, please visit www.gipartners.com.

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