Member Article

Leeds entrepreneur invests £15k in B2B supply chain ‘dating’ startup

Leeds entrepreneur Steve Pritchard has laucnhed a new startup, focusing on matching companies to the best suppliers, using an advanced scoring algorithm to rate each and every supplier.

So far up to £15k has been invested in the site, but founder Steve is looking for another £25k to further the project.

Proovide.com is still in beta and currently only hand picking a selection of UK suppliers within a controlled number of sectors, but is allowing companies to submit their supplier needs in the form of projects.

Steve Pritchard founder of Proovide says, “The business idea came from my personal struggle to find good suppliers. It was taking a lot of valuable time researching, evaluating and short listing potential companies and I believed that with all of the data available, I could make this process more efficient and transparent for customers and also deliver a cost effective channel for suppliers to find new clients”.

“Along with the company information we also enable suppliers to find new business leads from customers proactively looking for their products or services, rewarding suppliers who provide more transparency with higher scores.”

The Proovide dashboard details a supplier’s score based on 140 different third party metrics, including social media networks and credit rating services like DueDil, providing a wealth of information to customers about the supplier, their history and previous experience.

A customer simply uploads their project need and a supplier applies to be considered, only when this application is approved does the system pass on customer contact information, helping to improve customer privacy and reduce cold calls and spam.

Proovide is currently accepting projects from customers looking for new suppliers of marketing, digital marketing and digital media solutions, but welcomes any customer looking for a new supplier.

Proovide will continue to adapt the interface and scoring algorithm based on live data and user feedback and launch a number of new updates over the coming months to help improve user experienc

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Clare Burnett .