Expense management startup Ramp has confirmed its consideration for a pilot program of charge cards by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA). This internal expense card initiative, named SmartPay, is part of a vast $700 billion government program, with the potential contract for Ramp reaching up to $25 million, according to ProPublica.
Since January, Ramp has actively sought attention from the current administration, positioning itself as a solution for efficient government spending. Co-founders Eric Glyman and Kyle Harrison previously articulated their vision for reducing wasteful expenditure in a blog post titled “The Efficiency Formula,” which echoed themes from President Trump’s government agenda on efficiency. The startup boasts connections to influential figures in the tech and political arenas, including investors like Peter Thiel and Jeb Bush.
Ramp’s head of communications, Lindsay McKinley, emphasised the company’s competitiveness in the SmartPay procurement process, highlighting its technology’s potential to save billions in unnecessary spending. McKinley asserted that should Ramp be selected, it aims to deliver similar economic benefits to taxpayers as it does for corporate clients. The company provides features for corporate expense management, such as compliance checks and expenditure tracking.
In a recent statement, McKinley noted the significant scale of government credit usage, with about 4.6 million active credit cards across 90 million transactions, amounting to $40 billion in spending for FY24, according to information from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Following a connection made through a former client, Ramp has entered the Request for Information (RFI) process for the GSA contract and has yet to receive any indication regarding its selection.
Moreover, Ramp recently achieved a valuation milestone of $13 billion following a $150 million secondary share sale, bringing its total capital raised to over $1 billion in equity financing and $700 million in debt since its establishment in 2019.
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