The team behind Atlanta-based Propagent wants you to stop leaving money on the table.
That is a common reality for businesses that rely on submitting RFPs (requests for proposals) to win new business. The process is time-consuming and competitive, forcing teams to set aside other work just to chase opportunities. The frustration can become so acute that companies often skip RFPs that could be a perfect fit.
Propagent is tackling this pain point head-on with an AI agent platform that looks to fundamentally change how businesses approach the proposal process.
Inside Propagent’s Platform
Propagent gives customers an AI agent “team” that does research, drafting, editing, pricing ops, and QA work based on information securely uploaded (including past proposals and a company knowledge base). The startup learns a customer’s voice, style, and successful content patterns to get back “high-quality, compliant, and persuasive proposals” that they can put final touches on.
Propagent evaluates its output using the GRADE framework: Groundedness, Relevance, Accuracy, Depth, and Explainability. “Groundedness is our ability to tie answers directly to the source. Relevance is whether the answer is directly addressing the question. Accuracy is whether the answer is factually correct,” Beecham explained. “Depth is how much of the question is being answered. Explainability is how clear the answer is. This criteria is primarily used in the Q&A repository to inform our customers of data that can use improvement. We use similar standards in our backend for writing the proposal response.”
The result: proposal creation time slashed by 50% and win rates increased by up to 25%.
Why Generic AI Tools Fall Short
While it might be tempting to use commercially-available tools like ChatGPT or Claude for proposal writing, Beecham argues these solutions don’t provide the rigor required for high-stakes business proposals.
“The reality is that they lack controls around fact checking,” he explains. Propagent differentiates itself through “AI agents in the background that do all that quality checks for you” and only relies on secured customer information.
In its early stages, Propagent is focused on the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry, pursuing two distinct customer profiles. The first is small-to-medium sized businesses with a single point of contact managing all RFPs and RFIs (requests for information). Such employees are typically overwhelmed by the workload and might be missing opportunities to submit more proposals.
But Beecham sees even greater potential with high-volume players.
“If [they] are putting 200 RFPs out there, why not 400? Why not 600?” he told Hypepotamus. “If we can build something that keeps their consistent quality of the work that they’re doing, and frees them up to put more personalization and their human touch on that work, that only increases their potential win rates and their potential revenue.”
Building What’s Next
Beecham is a Georgia Tech graduate who grew up in the Metro Atlanta area. He worked at Logic20/20 and Capgemini before jumping into the startup world. But he says that the “entrepreneurial spirit” is ingrained in his DNA. His ancestors were among the major funders of the Mayflower, a heritage he credits for shaping his drive to build and innovate.
He is building Propagent alongside co-founder Steve Ernst. Ernst previously held titles like CTO of banks.com and President and CEO Discovix Inc.
Beecham told Hypepotamus that the long-term vision for the startup is to “solve for both the buyer and vendor sides of the equation, so that both sides get the best outcomes without the major inefficiencies of the current process.”
“For the next year, we will continue to focus on improving our core product for the vendor, and we’ll build – in parallel – the buy side of the equation.”
