Atlanta -- Procuri.com, an e-procurement services provider that help companies buy materials and goods from their suppliers, announced a $7 million round of funding from more than 80 angel investors. The Atlanta-based company offers a simple reverse auction solution that requires no up-front costs and saves corporate purchasing departments time and money within days.
Like most corporate functions, procurement is being enhanced through technology. Traditional procurement methods required numerous phone calls or faxes to suppliers to request bids, then follow-up for counter bids. The process could take days, sometimes weeks. Elaborate and costly software solutions have been developed to speed the process, but they take months to implement and can dictate who the suppliers are. And like today's Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software systems that they are modeled on, the software solutions can have more promise than practicality.
Offering a mix of the old and the new Procuri.com brings the benefits of automation - saved time without the implementation costs and times of the massive software based solutions. All the buyer and supplier need is a PC and an Internet browser.
The process is simple. It lets buyers work with their preferred suppliers. By automating RFQs and bringing the negotiations into a reverse auction, buyers can close the transaction more quickly and efficiently while also saving money.
