Rep. Gerald Connolly, rating member of the U.S. Home Oversight Committee, has initiated an investigation into whether or not expense administration startup Ramp is receiving preferential remedy in its bid for a $25 million government contract.
Connolly despatched a letter to Normal Providers Administration (GSA) Performing Administrator Stephen Ehikian demanding info and paperwork associated to the GSA’s reported plans to award a contract for a pilot program to Ramp. Information of the probe was first reported by ProPublica.
Amongst Connolly’s largest issues are that Ramp allegedly has “zero federal contracting expertise” and its buyers embody quite a lot of Trump allies and supporters. These buyers embody Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, Keith Rabois of Khosla Ventures, Thrive Capital (based by Josh Kushner, brother of Trump’s son-in-law Jared), vocal Trump supporter 8VC’s Joe Lonsdale, and Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida and brother of former Republican President George W. Bush. Rabois, in line with Connolly’s letter, raised greater than $1 million for Donald Trump’s 2024 marketing campaign.
Connolly is requesting a number of issues from the GSA, together with an in depth record of all conferences between any GSA official and any Ramp consultant, and all communications between any GSA official, contractor, or subcontractor and any Ramp consultant.
The federal government’s inner expense card program, dubbed SmartPay, is a $700 billion program. Presently, Citibank and US Financial institution, two of the nation’s largest suppliers of bank cards, are the official banks of the present SmartPay contract.
In April, Ramp’s head of communications, Lindsay McKinley, confirmed to TechCrunch that the startup was “competing in a normal procurement course of for a SmartPay pilot program primarily based on the energy of our resolution.”
She claimed that the startup Ramp noticed a public post on X shared by the Division of Authorities Effectivity, higher often called DOGE, on February 18 that mentioned “the US authorities at present has ~4.6M energetic bank cards/accounts, which processed ~90M distinctive transactions for ~$40B of spend in FY24.”
A former buyer, Ramp claims, launched Ramp to GSA a couple of days later.
Nonetheless, Connolly alleges that Ramp reportedly started contacting entities within the cost business about particular financial institution identification numbers required to course of authorities funds earlier than a request for info (RFI) associated to the contract was publicly introduced.
He additionally claimed {that a} GSA worker not too long ago said that Ramp was the “favourite” to win this enterprise.
Ramp didn’t have any touch upon Connolly’s investigation.
In March, Ramp doubled its valuation to $13 billion after a $150 million secondary share sale. Since its inception in 2019, the startup has raised over $1 billion in fairness financing and $700 million in dedicated debt funding.
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