Negotiatus
A Fresh Take on Procurement

Those responsible for purchasing at any mid-sized business are used to one of two unfortunate realities: a process managed almost entirely via email and spreadsheets, or an unwieldy procurement system that requires significant training and ultimately slows down their day to day functions. The problem wreaks havoc across a business’ operations and finance departments as purchasers order as best they can (even if it goes against the company’s policies and procedures), admins struggle to gain spend visibility and spend control, and finance is inundated with thousands of invoices to track and enter into their accounting system.

This is the problem that co-founders Zach Garippa and Tom Jaklitsch have solved with Negotiatus, the purchasing platform that is quickly becoming the de-facto tool for fast-growing, multi-location businesses. Garippa, CEO, always had a keen interest in how tech and data can make people’s lives easier. He continued to develop a passion around this idea during his time at Morgan Stanley, and it quickly morphed into an obsession when he was introduced to Tom Jaklitch, the company’s CTO. The pair bonded over building a purchasing platform devoted to the end user, opting for a nimble, lighter-weight approach. “We wanted to build a system that was designed from the ground up to be recognizable and user-friendly to everyone,” Garippa said, “And this has resulted in best-in-class rollout times, user adoption metrics, and customer satisfaction rates.”

Negotiatus’ purchaser-centric approach is balanced with a data-driven one, whereby the platform constantly benchmarks, categorizes, and optimizes spend information and presents the user with the right information at the right time. For example, purchasers benefit from getting notified of delivery issues before they happen, and can view and manage historical delivery info within any order or compare across vendors and products. By providing proper purchasing insights, the company also helps finance teams set budgets and gain a broader understanding of their spending.

Our vision is for Negotiatus to be the easiest place for a business to order everything it needs

Garippa mentions, “We are configurable so that a business can leverage the platform in their own unique way. Instead of simply saying that we are faster, stronger, and better, we focus on understanding the existing process that a business follows and look to supercharge it. We then look to help guide purchasing behavior to help operations and finance teams achieve their goals.”

All of the company’s relationships begin with a customer ‘linking’ their vendor accounts to the platform allowing Negotiatus to catalog and categorize their products into one dashboard while establishing secure links to place orders and remit payment to vendors. The company packages this solution as what Garippa calls a “true one-stop shop: one catalog, one cart, and one invoice across your entire vendor network.” As a result, the average purchase on Negotiatus occurs 95% faster than competing systems, and over 85% of businesses on the platform receive just one invoice per week or month. The company also boasts a 4.9/5 rating from its user base.

Looking ahead, Negotiatus has aggressive goals to grow from both a technology and a market perspective. Presently, the company has a particular focus on midmarket customers and serves a diverse customer-base across industries such as health and wellness, coworking, and retail, boasting popular brands such as WeWork, SoulCycle, and XpresSpa. As an essential part of its expansion plan into other verticals, Negotiatus will be looking to boost its integration capabilities with existing ERP and accounting systems, add functionality for additional spend like subscriptions and services, and further expand international support.