TealBook Executives. Arnold Liwanag (Left), Stephany Lapierre (Middle) and Matt Palackdharry (Right)
Procurement Possibilities

Transforming the Supplier Data Market

By Stephany Lapierre

TealBook announced $50M ($64.5M CND) Series B 

An entrepreneur writes an idea on a napkin, raises millions of dollars, and launches a rocketship.

That’s not my story… 

My story consisted of putting the pieces of a complex puzzle together, learning and leveraging emerging technologies and convincing an entire industry and investors that supplier data was the single most important asset to the digital buy-side transformation. With a lot of hard work, growing supporters, a little luck along the way and timing no one could have predicted… the market has finally arrived! Supplier data has finally become the core pillar to achieving corporate priorities and digital procurement success. It is validated by exponential growth, increased user base and integrations, partnerships, quality of our talent and investors as well as the acceleration of our $50M USD Series B announced just before the holidays! 

Addressing the Data Problem

I spent years convincing the buy-side market that “people”, “processes”, and “software” were not the issue — it was a DATA problem. I painfully saw portal-based software companies convincing procurement organizations that cloud technology would solve the data problem and enable digital success. In case you haven’t learned yet, it doesn’t. 

Software systems rely on integrations between systems to connect the dots, recurring third-party services and suppliers to come to portals to keep their records up-to-date (suppliers don’t do it). It leaves organizations with expensive methods of collecting, maintaining and connecting data with no end to data quality or added internal intelligence insight. It leaves software solutions investments with subpar ROI and teams operating blindly.  

While the e-procurement software market alone has reached $20B, 92% of procurement and supply chain executives claimed they do not have good quality data to respond fast enough to disruptions caused by COVID. An estimated $700 billion in digital transformation spending falls short of delivering desired results. The complexity of achieving a successful digital transformation, up until now, has been limited by a lack of good supplier data. 

Meeting Customer Needs

As many businesses continue to be impacted by global changes, TealBook is transforming the supplier data market to empower digital enterprises by unifying external and internal data across systems, optimizing all suppliers (big and small), and empowering employees to access the information needed about suppliers to respond faster to market changes and needs of the business. 

Our customers are looking for:

  1. Enhanced, dynamic and consolidated access to their entire supplier base to quickly deliver on important corporate goals (consolidation, risk, supplier diversity, ESG, category planning, compliance, etc). 
  2. An expanded supplier base to support corporate objectives such as hyper-savings, resourcing, relocation/redesign, contingency planning, supplier diversity, sustainability, localization, integrated into their existing sourcing software or complemented by our user-friendly interface. 
  3. Synchronized, Enhanced, and Updated supplier data across their legacy system and new digital point-solutions, moving towards a fully integrated data foundation.
  4. A better  way to effectively and efficiently manage supply chain risk and achieve an agile supply chain

Raising Series B funding will allow us to further address these needs and accelerate our data roadmap, introduce new partnerships + integrations, and expand our team to fuel global expansion. As Chief Strategy and Revenue Officer, Matt Palackdharry, said: 

This round of funding continues to validate that we are on to something very big. Supplier data is the number one factor inhibiting supply chain optimization and digital transformation projects. This round of funding will allow us to further bolster our development efforts and cement ourselves as the trusted source for supplier data globally.
Matt Palackdharry Chief Strategy and Revenue Officer

Thank You

As we move forward into 2022 and work to provide a better product for our customers, there is no shortage of gratitude to be shared with those who have helped us get to this chapter of our story.

To Our Customers

I am grateful to all of our customers who have taken a chance on us and proud that they have chosen data over software as its foundation. I can’t wait for you to show the rest of the world what you have accomplished in a short period of time, the value it has already generated for your organization, and the hundreds of millions of dollars it will unlock over the next few years. 

To Our Team

I am grateful to all of the TealBookers that have chosen to hop on this rocketship! We are building something new that has never been done before in our space. I am so proud of the team we have built, the culture we have created, and the impact we continue to have in the world.

We’ve had amazing people join our team who have recognized our vision and believed in everything we do to reach new heights. As Arnold Liwanag, Chief Technology Officer, shared:

“When I met Steph, Matt, and the team, understood their vision, and saw the logos they were landing, I knew they were onto something big. Closing Series B confirms my intuition and shows that there are many others who also see the massive potential of what we’re building. I’m pumped to help take TealBook to the next stage of growth and transform the supplier data market.”
Arnold Liwanag Chief Technology Officer

Our people are kind, smart, collaborative, accountable, and incredibly passionate about what we do. My goal is that you all further your careers while at TealBook and can always point back to a company that makes you proud!

To Our Investors

Another special thank you to our investors. Your belief in me and my vision has continued to validate the unique market opportunity and reinforced that we are building something BIG and special.

The round was led by Ten Coves Capital, with additional participation from strategic investors RBC Ventures, Good Friends (an early-stage venture capital firm started in 2019 by the founders of Warby Parker, Harry’s and Allbirds) and venture debt from CIBC Ventures

Existing investors who continue to support and also participated in the round include: RTP Global, S&P Global Ventures,, BDC Capital, Grand Ventures, Refinery Ventures, Stand Up Ventures and Workday Ventures

Thank you to all of our investors who have continued to support us since the beginning! We wouldn’t be here without you!

Our Next Chapter

My vision has never changed: advance the world through better supplier data. Organizations of all sizes have big responsibilities and accountability to their customers, employees, shareholders and suppliers. As the world is changing fast and organizations are impacted by endless disruptions, innovations and growing compliance requirements, there is a greater need for transparency, insights and agility. 

This capital is taking TealBook, our customers, and our partners to the next level. We will be increasing the velocity of our data pipeline and outputs, enabling valuable and unique insights, building self-service reporting capabilities, scaling integrations into all software solutions that touch supplier data, and investing heavily on growing self-enriching supplier data attributes that support growing corporate priorities such as risk, global supplier diversity and ESG. 

TealBook is beyond ecstatic for this next phase of our growth and will use the influx of capital to supercharge our technology and expand value to our customers and partners. Here’s to unleashing procurement possibilities and transforming the procurement sphere through the use of reliable supplier data!

Stephany Lapierre headshot
About the Author

Stephany Lapierre is the Founder and CEO of Tealbook. A lifelong entrepreneur, Stephany is one of SCMA's 100 Influential Women in Canadian Supply Chain and has won many awards for her innovative approach to supplier intelligence. Prior to tealbook, Stephany built a successful procurement consulting firm focused on helping Fortune 500 companies improve strategic sourcing efficiencies. For more than a decade, Stephany was exposed to the costly and inefficient gap between enterprise buyers and suppliers. In 2014, she launched Tealbook to disrupt the business-to-business directory model by building the largest, most robust and trusted B2B network. Her innovative vision is for Tealbook to enable all companies to connect and find one another with more trust in order to drive their business forward.

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