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Management reporting software startup OpenGov has landed a $15 million Series B round of funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, the company announced Thursday. Other investors include Formation 8 and Thrive Capital.
OpenGov has created cloud-based software that allows governments to visualize their budgets and track spending. The software basically makes it easier for local officials and government executives to see how they’re spending taxpayer money.
It provides them with pretty, interactive graphics that make it easier to spot trends than staring at an ugly Excel spreadsheet. Those graphics can also be provided to the public online, which in turn increases government transparency.
The company was interesting because it targets local governments, which spend roughly $3.7 trillion a year and often use reporting software that dates back 20 years, said Balaji Srinivasan, an Andreessen Horowitz general partner who is joining OpenGov’s board.
“Prior to OpenGov, if an executive wanted to ask a question of the database — like, ‘How much are we spending on this program?’ — they needed a custom report prepared by the IT department,” he said. Now, “they can look at the site and click around. They can figure out what’s going on.”
It’s the first significant investment by Andreessen Horowitz in the government technology space (although the venture firm also invested in NationBuilder, which provides political candidates with cloud-based software and a social network platform).
Government managers provide anywhere from five to 10 years’ worth of budget data so that OpenGov’s systems can show spending trends. One feature allows government managers to monitor current-year spending. The company is also building a feature that allows officials to check how their spending compares with similarly sized governments across the U.S.
“One of the key value props we have is we’re taking their data and making it intelligible,” said Zac Bookman, OpenGov’s co-founder and CEO. “If you hung this 40,000 row Excel spreadsheet online, it’s useful to almost no one.”
It launched a few years ago as Delphi Solutions and has amassed about a hundred local government clients in 15 states. OpenGov’s most prominent client so far is the city of Los Angeles, where the mayor recently used the software to explain the city’s latest budget.
The company is expected to use the additional funding on expanding the company’s sales team, additional software development and more customer support for clients.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
