Funding government technology

[caption id=”attachment_20464” align=”alignnone” width=”1200”] Govtech Fund Managing Partner Ron Bouganim (Photo: Code for America)[/caption]

I’m always inspired talking and working with entrepreneurs trying to solve big civic problems, especially those who realize much of the challenge lies within modernizing and empowering internal government operations, so it was great to finally meet with Govtech Fund Founder and Managing Partner Ron Bouganim this week.

Govtech Fund aims to “harness the power of transformers, technology, and capital to help government become more efficient, responsive, and better able to serve society.” Bouganim has raised $23 million to make this happen, and the fund has made five investments to date, including SmartProcure, Mark43, SeamlessDocs, AmigoCloud and mySidewalk (formerly MindMixer), with a sixth soon to be announced.

Bouganim differentiates between govtech and civictech, the former focusing on internal agency technology infrastructure, or the “government operating system,” such as procurement, permitting, GIS and fraud detection, and the latter being citizen-focused services.

What strikes me about Bouganim, besides the fact that he’s helping to build a Mandarin immersion school in San Francisco, is his complete focus to the government technology sector, from educating other venture capitalists on the space to managing deal flow and putting his money where his mouth is.

“This is the last job I’ll ever do,” Bouganim told me.

To learn more about Bouganim’s perspective on funding government technology, read Next City’s profile from earlier this year and watch his 2015 Code for America Summit talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X6WSr5NJUI