ICYMI Pulsecheck (Week Ending 7.25)

💰 Fresh Funding & Valuations:

• Vanta grabs $150 M (Series D) to automate continuous compliance for 12 k+ customers - underscoring that “prove-you-re-secure” is now part of the spend stack. (Tech Startups)

• Makersite | $70.2 M Series B - Its “product-lifecycle intelligence” engine fuses cost, carbon and compliance data across 150 k+ SKUs. Expect engineers to arrive at sourcing meetings armed with real-time trade-off charts — and to demand price transparency from suppliers. (Manufacturing Digital)

• Civic Marketplace | $3.2 M Seed - AI-native exchange that lets 200+ Texas agencies click-to-buy instead of paper-bid. Proof that the $2 T public-sector wallet is finally moving to SaaS rails. (civicmarketplace.com)

• Delve | $32 M Series A - “Autopilot” for SOC 2, HIPAA and looming AI regs; turns months of audit prep into weeks. Less compliance drudgery, more time to push vendors on price. (Tech Startups)

🏛️ Policy & Platform Shifts:

• White House AI Action Plan - New executive orders tie federal AI buys to “truthful, ideologically neutral” models and promise refreshed procurement guidelines this fall. Vendors selling LLM-powered tools into gov cloud: start the playbook rewrite now. (Wiley)

• GSA told to swallow “common” buys - OMB Memo M-25-1 begins migrating commodity contracts to Best-in-Class schedules. Fewer one-off RFQs, more mega-competitions: get on schedule or get sidelined. (GovWin IQ)

• Microsoft’s consumption-based Windows Server licence (EU) - Non-Azure clouds can finally sell WS by the sip. Expect fresh negotiation ammo and a clue to how Redmond may price other workloads. (Licenseware)

💸 Price-Hike Radar:

• Exchange & Skype Server “Last - Call” ESU - Six-month security patch lifeline goes on sale Aug 1. Cost is per-server and undisclosed; Microsoft stresses it will not extend past Apr 2026. Migrate or budget the cliff.

• The wider AI-tax keeps climbing - VMware (+1,000 %), Docker (+80 %), Microsoft Teams Phone (+25 %) and more are logged in Licenseware’s 2025 tracker. Factor an extra 10-15 % into 2026 SaaS forecasts.

🔗 Platform Moves:

Ironclad ↔ Coupa
Ironclad’s July release lets CLM pros auto-pull live supplier records from Coupa straight into contract workflows. Goodbye copy-paste, hello one-click vendor context—and far fewer “Did we onboard this supplier yet?” ping-pongs. support.ironcladapp.com

Paylocity folds spend controls into its HCM stack
On July 22, the payroll stalwart launched an integrated spend-management module that bolts cards, invoices, and approvals onto the same system housing pay stubs and PTO. For lean finance teams, that’s one less standalone procurement tool (and contract) to juggle. Paylocity