For Procurement
NewCapital readiness: hear an AI business partner interview a vendor

Supplier readiness, delivered as a partner

You don’t have a demand problem.
You have a readiness problem.

You’ve set a goal to award a share of your contracts to small businesses. What you lack is enough certified, insured, capable ones that can quote within 48 hours. CoFounder.AI gives every vendor in your database an AI business partner that gets them there, and gives you the console that shows who is ready today.

Book the 30-minute pitchSee the readiness console
$39per vendor, per month. The public list price. No institutional markup, ever.
30 dayssponsored by you. The vendor carries it from month two, because the vendor wins the contract.
7an AI business partner plus six AI specialists, working for every vendor between the calls.
1 consolelive readiness on every activated vendor. Push each opportunity only to vendors verified ready for it.

The gap

The goal is public. The shortfall is a supply problem.

Every institution with a small-business or supplier-diversity goal reports a number below it. One public university system, in its own annual reports, set a 25% goal, reported 18%, and has roughly $10B in addressable spend. That is a gap of about $700M a year, at ticket sizes its set-aside program already tells buyers to award to small business first.

Closing it means thousands of additional awards, which means thousands of additional ready vendors. They are already in your database. Nobody has done the work to get them ready.

25%goal
18%reported
~$700Mgap, per year

Figures from one public university system’s own procurement annual reports. Yours will differ. Run them on the right.

Run your number

What is your gap worth?

$700Mper year, short of your own goal
$780,000sponsors month one for every one of them

That sponsorship is about 0.1% of one year’s gap. One additional set-aside award at a $250,000 ceiling is a third of it.

How it works

From a list of names to a scored, gap-mapped vendor base in one sponsored month.

There is no portal to build and no staff to hire. You send the list and the first touch. We do the rest, and you watch it happen on the console. Every vendor leaves month one with a readiness assessment, and their AI business partner keeps closing the gaps after that.

01

Your list. Your letterhead. Our phones.

You choose the cohort from your vendor database and send it the way that’s easiest: a spreadsheet for the first cohort, or by API so every vendor who registers with you later is enrolled automatically. Then you send one announcement email. After that, our outreach team calls every vendor on your behalf, explains that you’ve sponsored a readiness assessment to help them become a ready vendor and gain access to capital, and walks them into their first call with their AI business partner. Humans call. Nobody gets a cold text.

02

Every vendor gets an AI business partner.

Onboarding is the same as any founder’s. The first card on their board opens a readiness interview, scored against your rubric: certifications, insurance and bonding, capacity, past performance, registration, financials, and whether they need capital to perform. Not ready is fine. Getting them ready is the partner’s job.

03

Gaps become work, not paperwork.

Every missing item becomes a card the AI business partner and its six specialists work: the capability statement gets drafted, the insurance renewal gets requested, the certification application gets filed. The vendor approves. The score moves. The console updates.

04

Ready vendors show up ready in the system you already run.

We work alongside your sourcing platform and bid portal, not in place of them. Registration in your system is part of every vendor’s readiness, and the console shows your buyers who is ready, and for what. And for vendors who keep their AI business partner, you can optionally send your RFPs and RFQs through the API for a rapid response: each one reaches the vendors verified ready for it, with the response already drafted. You still post every solicitation publicly, as you do today.

Upstream

Your vendor list

The registered vendors you already have, under a data agreement: a spreadsheet, or by API as new vendors register.

The readiness layer

CoFounder.AI

Your readiness rubric, applied to every vendor. An AI business partner closing their gaps, and a console showing you who is ready.

Downstream

Your sourcing system and capital partners

Where bids, awards and financing still happen. Vendors arrive there ready, whatever platform you run, and their readiness status can flow back to your systems by API.

Two kinds of readiness

Can they win the contract? Can they fund the work?

A vendor can be on either side of each. Both tracks run on the same board, with two different owners, and the console shows both statuses on every vendor.

Vendor readiness

Your rubric, built with your team. Scored by the AI business partner.

Can this business win and perform one of your contracts? Readiness is different at every institution, so we build the rubric with you from your own requirements: certification, insurance certificate, capability statement, registration in your system, capacity, past performance. Objective criteria, open to every registered vendor, nothing targeted by who owns the business.

  • Scored and timestamped on the first call
  • Every gap becomes a card the AI business partner works
  • Re-scored as cards close; the console flips to ready
Hear a readiness interview

Funding readiness

Assessed by the AI business partner. Applications filed with the vendor’s approval.

Does the business have, or can it get, the capital to perform? The AI business partner weighs twelve kinds of capital, checks every answer against documents or the books, and works out what each contract needs before the first payment. Its capital specialist then prepares the applications. Once the vendor approves, each goes out from the vendor’s own email, or the vendor files it on the funder’s own site with everything ready. Each unmet requirement becomes a card, and the AI business partner reassesses as they close.

  • Nothing is submitted without the vendor’s approval
  • The first determination is the baseline every outcome is measured from
  • If your program names a capital partner, vendors can be routed there first
See how capital readiness works

Listen

Hear a vendor readiness interview.

Avery, a CoFounder.AI business partner, checks what’s already on public record, asks only what’s missing, and scores the vendor against the program’s requirements as they talk. The gaps land on the vendor’s board before the call ends.

Vendor readiness

Okafor Facility Services

Commercial cleaning, 4 years, 22 staff. Enrolled through the city’s small-business program and eyeing the city’s janitorial RFP.

0:00 / 2:09
  1. Avery · AI business partner

    Thanks for making the time. I’ve already looked a few things up, so I don’t ask you what I can check myself. Your SAM.gov registration is active, and you’re in the city’s supplier portal. So registration is done.

  2. Owner · Okafor Facility Services

    Good. We’re looking at the city’s janitorial RFP, so the timing works.

  3. Avery · AI business partner

    Then let’s make sure you’re ready for it. The program has eight requirements, and one’s done. Do you hold any small-business certifications, city, state or SBA?

  4. Owner · Okafor Facility Services

    We had the city’s small local business certification. I think it lapsed in the spring.

  5. Avery · AI business partner

    I’ll confirm that in the city’s directory. Recertifying is mostly paperwork I can prepare, and it takes four to eight weeks, so we should start this week. What insurance do you carry?

  6. Owner · Okafor Facility Services

    General liability, workers’ comp and commercial auto.

  7. Avery · AI business partner

    Most contracts in this program need a million per occurrence and two million aggregate. Can you send me your current certificate? Your broker can email it in a few minutes.

  8. Owner · Okafor Facility Services

    Sending it now.

  9. Avery · AI business partner

    Got it. One million per occurrence, two million aggregate, and it’s current. That requirement’s met. Do you have a capability statement, the one-page summary buyers ask for?

  10. Owner · Okafor Facility Services

    No, just our website.

  11. Avery · AI business partner

    I’ll draft one from your website and this call, and you’ll approve it before it goes anywhere. Who are your biggest clients right now?

  12. Owner · Okafor Facility Services

    Two office parks, and the county courthouse annex. We’ve had the county for three years.

  13. Avery · AI business partner

    The county contract counts for a lot, because it’s public work. How many more buildings could you take on next month without hiring?

  14. Owner · Okafor Facility Services

    Two, maybe. After that I’d need to hire.

  15. Avery · AI business partner

    Bonding usually isn’t required for cleaning contracts in this program, so I’ve marked it not needed. Last one. Do you keep your books in QuickBooks?

  16. Owner · Okafor Facility Services

    Yes.

  17. Avery · AI business partner

    Connect it and your financial statements are covered. Here’s where you stand. Five of eight are done, and three are gaps: the certification, a capability statement, and connecting QuickBooks. They’re on your board now, and I’ll start the first two today.

  18. Avery · AI business partner

    One more thing. That city contract would mean carrying about two and a half months of payroll before the first payment arrives. Want me to run the capital assessment next, so we know how you’d fund it?

  19. Owner · Okafor Facility Services

    Yes, let’s do that.

Illustrative interview · fictional business · AI-generated voices

The readiness console

The list you have today, as a live census.

Built at our cost, with your procurement lead as design partner. You see readiness status, gaps in progress and aggregate outcomes on every activated vendor. You never see their documents.

  • Both readiness statuses on every vendor, timestamped
  • Gaps by category across the cohort, and which ones are closing
  • Who is ready for your next solicitation, by category
  • Weekly reporting, and the full census at day 30
Wave 1 of 4 · sample data

Supplier readiness

Live
5,000sponsored
2,612activated
788vendor-ready
412ready to bid
Readiness funnel2,612 activated
In interviewGaps queuedGaps in progressReady
Ready by category · custodial services

212 vendors ready to bid · 41 more with one gap left

Top open gaps: insurance certificate (29) · bonding (12)

The math

$39 a vendor. Once.

You are not buying software for 20,000 businesses. You are sponsoring the first month of every vendor’s readiness journey. The vendor carries it from there, because the vendor is the one who wins the contract.

A sponsorship is a per-vendor scholarship with a fixed end date. You never bill anyone. Vendors add a card when they activate, and nothing is charged before day 31. They can cancel any time in one click, and a vendor who cancels by day 30 pays nothing and keeps their readiness assessment. You approve the exact wording they see.

20,000vendors, first cohort
$780Ksponsors month one
~0.1%of one year’s gap

Cost per ready vendor · planning assumptions, replaced by wave-one data

ActivationActivatedReady in 30 days (30%)Cost per ready vendor
40%8,0002,400$325
50%10,0003,000$260
60%12,0003,600$217

One additional set-aside award at a $250,000 ceiling is a third of the whole sponsorship. A few dozen additional awards from the first cohort moves more spend toward your goal than the sponsorship cost, and you keep the census and the console either way.

Where a capital partner is in the program, its success fee on vendors found funding-ready at baseline flows to you, the sponsor. That is the second way the sponsorship comes back.

The terms, in plain language

Six things you commit to. Everything else is ours to deliver.

You bring

  • The sponsorship. $39 per vendor for 30 days, at public list price, paid on signature.
  • The list. The cohort, selected with us for set-aside fit, sent by spreadsheet or API under a data agreement.
  • The first touch. One announcement email on your letterhead, introducing the program and the calls that follow.
  • A design partner. One named procurement lead who builds your vendor readiness rubric with us, then meets with us weekly through the first cohort.
  • Phase-two criteria. Activation, readiness lift and contract-outcome thresholds, agreed now, that trigger expansion.
  • The renewal message. You review and approve the exact words vendors see at signup and in the reminder before day 31.

We deliver

  • The outreach campaign. A human team, funded from the sponsorship, that calls every vendor on your behalf: you’ve sponsored their readiness assessment, to help them become a ready vendor and gain access to capital.
  • An AI business partner for every vendor. The readiness interview on your rubric, both scores, and the work that closes the gaps.
  • The console, at our cost. Readiness status and aggregate outcomes on every activated vendor. Never their documents.
  • RFPs and RFQs by API, if you want them. For vendors who keep their AI business partner: each solicitation you send reaches the vendors verified ready for it, with a response drafted for a rapid turnaround. You still post publicly, and your sourcing system stays the system of record.
  • Weekly reporting, and the census at day 30. Scored, current, and yours to keep whether or not you expand.
  • Staged intake. Weekly waves of 5,000, so outreach, voice and the console ramp together. A staged 30 days reads as competence.

Who this is for

Anyone with a vendor database and a goal they are measured on.

Universities and systems

A small-business-first policy your campus buyers already follow, and a supplier base that cannot yet fill it.

Cities, counties and states

Local-preference and set-aside programs measured by awards, with a registered vendor roll nobody has the staff to develop.

Enterprises

Supplier-diversity and local-sourcing commitments reported to a board, and a tier-two supplier base that needs to become tier-one capable.

Supplier councils and capital partners

Applicants who are not yet ready become vendors who are. You refer the not-ready to us; we route the ready to you.

The questions you will ask

Answered before the meeting.

These are the objections every procurement office raises. The answers are the program design, not a sales response.

“Why should we pay for a business’s software?”
You are not. You are sponsoring a 30-day readiness census of your own vendor base, a phone campaign to every one of those vendors, and a console you keep. The vendor pays for the software, from month two.
“Vendors will feel tricked into paying.”
You never bill anyone. Vendors add a card when they activate, with the terms on the same screen: nothing is charged before day 31, they can cancel any time in one click, and anyone who cancels by day 30 pays nothing and keeps their readiness assessment. You approve the exact wording before it ships.
“What about equity optics and state law?”
The program is open to every registered vendor. Readiness is scored on objective criteria: certification, insurance, capacity, financials, past performance. Nothing is targeted by race or gender.
“Where does vendor data go?”
You see readiness status and aggregate metrics, not private documents. Data goes to a capital partner only when the vendor consents inside the assessment. A data agreement governs the list.
“Can you really handle 20,000 in 30 days?”
Weekly waves of 5,000, with the outreach team pacing intake. The first wave is the proof, and you watch it live on the console.
“How does this fit our procurement rules?”
This is a pilot sponsorship with a design-partner role for you, not a software purchase, and there is no comparable product to bid. We use whatever vehicle you prefer, and the MOU comes first.
“What if it doesn’t work?”
Phase two is gated on activation, readiness lift and contract outcomes we agree in the MOU. If the first cohort misses, you still own the census and the console.

The ask

Bring us your list.
We’ll bring the AI business partners.

Thirty minutes. We walk your procurement lead through the console with your numbers in it, and leave you with a one-page term sheet sized to an existing supplier-development line.

Book the 30-minute pitchAsk about a first wave of 5,000

Public list price · No institutional markup · Month-to-month after the sponsored month · Zero equity