---
title: 'Founders Associate at CivicMarketplace'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/founders-associate-civicmarketplace-global-k124r2rmfzfx'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-02'
---

# Founders Associate at CivicMarketplace

- **Company:** CivicMarketplace
- **Location:** Global
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-11-02
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-02
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/civicmarketplace/47d83e8d-cc70-4919-8330-4fdba3b1ff5d

## Job description

Civic Marketplace: Founders Associate Location: London, with daily overlap into US Central hours and regular travel to Texas Type: Full time

## Role Overview

Civic Marketplace is an AI native cooperative procurement platform for US local government. Public procurement is one of the largest, least modernised workflows in the public sector. Our agentic workflows help agencies discover, evaluate and engage suppliers faster, and open public sector opportunities to more businesses. We are looking for a Founders Associate to work directly with the CEO: taking the company's most important cross functional problems, putting structure around them, and running them to completion with a team eight hours away.

## Why Civic Marketplace

This is a seat at the centre of a company building category defining infrastructure for how government buys. The market is large, under contested and moving fast toward AI. You will see every part of the business, work directly with the founders, investors and our government partners, and own outcomes rather than support someone else who does.

## About the Role

This is an owner's role, not a chief of staff in the scheduling sense. You will take two or three company priorities a quarter off the CEO's desk and run them end to end. Al is based in the UK and most of the team and our partners are in US Central, so you will open workstreams with Al in the UK morning and run them with the US team through their day. You will:

- Own flagship programmes end to end: for example our solicitation sourcing programme with a cooperative partner, designing the process and the AI tooling around it and running it to the outcome.
- Bring structure to ambiguous questions: turn a half formed question from the CEO, the board or a partner into a framed problem with options and a recommendation, usually within a day.
- Run the operating rhythm: leadership syncs, board and investor updates, OKR reviews and the all hands, so decisions get made and then get done.
- Represent the CEO with partners: hold your own with procurement directors, cooperative executives and investors, and take the meetings that do not need Al.
- Build with AI: use Claude, our MCP server and internal agents as a default part of how you work, and help the team do the same.

## About You

You are three to five years post MBB, or an operator at a Series A to C company who has run a cross functional programme. You have owned something from brief to result without a handover, and you want more of that, not a stepping stone toward it. You likely have:

- Strategic frameworks you bring into the room unprompted: given an ambiguous problem you structure it, form hypotheses and propose how to test them without being led there.
- Executive presence: concise, confident, direct, and able to hold a room with senior public sector or investor audiences.
- A track record of ownership: a programme, launch or deal you ran where you set the plan, made the calls and carried the outcome.
- Experience working with senior stakeholders across time zones, and a clear method for keeping work moving while you are asleep.
- Analytical fluency: comfortable building the number yourself in spreadsheets, dashboards and SQL adjacent tools.
- Hands on use of AI tooling in your own work: agents, MCP, prompt driven workflows.
- Low ego and high standards: direct, curious, and comfortable being challenged.
- Public sector curiosity. No prior government experience required; exposure to procurement, cooperative purchasing or regulated B2B markets is a plus.

## What's in it for You

- Real ownership from week one, working directly with the CEO and founders.
- Exposure to every part of a Series A company heading into Series B: product, commercial, partnerships, fundraising and board.
- A clear path to a Head of Operations or GM style role as the company scales.
- A small, committed team of thoughtful operators and engineers across the US and UK.
- Competitive salary and meaningful equity.
- Remote first with regular time together, and travel to the US given how central relationships are.

## About CivicMarketplace

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Civic Marketplace is an AI-enabled procurement platform that streamlines purchasing for local governments by connecting them with pre-vetted, compliant vendors.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Seed stage; raised $3.2M)
- **Headquarters**: Austin, Texas, United States
- **Founded**: 2023
- **Founders**: Al Hleileh (Co-Founder & CEO) and Ron Holifield (Co-Founder & President)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Government technology / Public procurement
- **Target customers**: Local and state government agencies, quasi-governmental entities, and non-profits providing governmental services (B2G)
- **Mission or purpose statement**: “Unlock local agency procurement through innovation … saving time and taxpayer dollars.”

## Products & Services
- **[Civic Marketplace Platform]**: An AI-powered marketplace that matches government agencies with proven, pre-approved vendors. Features include supplier discovery, comparison tools, quote management, compliance support, and contract award workflows. The platform leverages cooperative purchasing contracts from partners such as TXShare, Alliance for Innovation (AFI), and Michigan Municipal Services Authority (MMSA) to ensure legal compliance and speed.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed (private)
- **Key Metric**: Total funding – $3.2M (Seed round closed November 2024)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Led by Kindred Capital; 10 institutional investors. Cooperative partners include TXShare (NCTCOG), AFI, MMSA, and others. Strategic partnerships with the Texas Police Chiefs Association and NIGP Business Council.
- **Growth Signals**: Headcount grew 83% year-over-year (to ~21–23 employees as of mid-2025). Launched the nation’s most comprehensive competitively bid AI contracts for local government (July 2025). Expanding internationally (offices in London, Estonia) and actively adding agency engagement and product roles.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Compliance by design**: All contracts are sourced through competitive, transparent procurement processes, giving agencies legal certainty.
- **Multi-cooperative network**: Partnership with multiple nationally recognized cooperative purchasing organizations broadens vendor access and geographic reach.
- **AI-enabled matching**: Uses data analytics and AI to connect agencies with the best-fit pre-vetted suppliers, reducing manual sourcing effort.
- **Focus on small & diverse suppliers**: Supports local economic development by including SMWB (small, minority, women-owned businesses).

## Strategic Focus
- **Expanding AI-driven procurement**: Recent launch of competitively awarded AI contracts signals a push to help governments adopt AI tools safely and compliantly.
- **Deepening public safety partnerships**: Strengthening ties with first responder organizations (e.g., Texas Police Chiefs Association).
- **Scaling platform adoption**: Growing agency engagement team and expanding into new states and countries.

## Why Work Here
- **Hybrid work environment**: Flexible remote/office policy with periodic team retreats to foster collaboration.
- **Meaningful impact**: Work directly improves how communities access public services, with potential to “impact millions of citizens all across America and the globe.”
- **Competitive compensation**: Includes salary, health insurance, retirement plans, performance bonuses.
- **Growing team**: Fast-paced startup culture with opportunities for ownership and career growth across product, engineering, and customer success.
- **Diverse, mission-driven colleagues**: Team spans multiple countries (US, UK, Estonia, Germany, Zimbabwe) and draws talent from government, tech, and consulting backgrounds.

## Sources
1. [Civic Marketplace Careers](https://www.civicmarketplace.com/careers)
2. [Civic Marketplace – Help Center](https://www.civicmarketplace.com/help-center/articles/what-is-civic-marketplace)
3. [Civic Marketplace – LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/civicmarketplace)
4. [Civic Marketplace – Team Page](https://www.civicmarketplace.com/team)
5. [PitchBook Profile](https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/608848-84)

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