Better Automation, Better Data Favor Pegbo for MWOB Bid Sourcing and Compliance

Pegbo brings authenticated data sources and a high tough approach to MWOB processes.

Pegbo helps generals increase bid coverage, nail public financing and supplier diversity requirements with a high-touch approach.

General contractors have a number of software options to choose from for subcontractor sourcing, bid coverage optimization, and compliance management, with many driving value not just through functionality, but through communities and networks of subcontractors participating in each one.

There is good and bad news about these applications.

The good news is this construction bid management software automates a lot of the friction out of issuing invitations to bid (ITBs) to trade contractors, taking administrative load off of the general or prime contractor.

The bad news is also that construction bid management software automates a lot of the friction out of issuing ITBs to trade contractors, with potential subs facing a barrage of irrelevant projects or projects with generals they don’t know well enough to merit a response. The technology is built for a “spray and pray” approach, which is suboptimal when ITBs are ignored, and when contractors lack the credentials the software suggests they have anyway. Highly-sought after minority, disadvantaged, women-owned (MWOB) and other contractors get more targeted ITBs through Pegbo, the Menlo Park, Cal.-based company founded in 2023 by ex-Google engineering manager Amar Amte. Meanwhile, generals get increased confidence they are in compliance with stakeholder requirements.

Better AI for ITB Automation

Breaking through the clutter may require a direct email or phone call, removed from the noise of automated ITBs in the system. Having been in project-centric enterprise software for more than 20 years, I’ve seen solutions to address this problem in middle-market systems of record, where invitations to bid are sent to one potential supplier at a time, in order of preference, until one accepts it. I’ve seen an Odoo extension that increases bid coverage by using artificial intelligence (AI) to break larger work packages down into multiple smaller ones, opening the door to multiple, smaller subs.

But what Pegbo delivers is a solution optimized to maximize bid coverage for medium- to large-size general contractors. Pegbo does not compete with but complements major applications already in the market first by escalating communications with contractors beyond ITBs that pop up in a portal or even through email. In our May 2026 briefing, Pegbo Head of Partnerships Steve Hellin said the product will soon be able to leverage AI-enabled voice communications to call subcontractors, including the ability to respond to questions based on a broad project data set. Pegbo’s AI will then also escalate a conversation to a human where necessary.

Hellin stressed that while this AI agents for this voice comms functionality is maturing, Pegbo does have a team of human agents that can drop onto projects to help contractors increase bid coverage.

“Some people hire us just for that,” Hellin said.

Better MWOB Subcontractor Ownership and Certification Data

Generals sourcing subcontractors through other preconstruction software may find themselves with subs lacking the diversity and other certifications claimed in the system. That’s because these other software applications rely on data the subs enter … this is self-reported information, it may be wrong and these statuses need to be renewed periodically—some as often as annually.

Pegbo, itself certified as a Small Business Enterprise in California, relies on proprietary connections directly into certified contractor and supplier data sources, including expiration dates on certifications, licenses, and insurance.  Hellin said this takes certification data accuracy to a new level, making for a more predictable process for contractors that must achieve and document diverse vendor spend goals through subcontracting, equipment rental and procurement processes. Generals relying on Pegbo can search for partners in a massive directory of more than 1 million verified trade partners by certifications including MBE, DBE, WBE, location, and NAICS codes.

Once Pegbo automates ITBs to the vetted, subcontractors and suppliers, and contracts are awarded, the software tracks certified contractors against government, project owner and stakeholder mandates, automating Good Faith Effort (GFE) reports.

Pegbo Demo

Hellin provided a quick look at the product, starting with a screen in BuildingConnected with a few bid packages he quickly synched into Pegbo.

“The GC is using us to improve bid coverage, and get more bidders per bid package,” Hellin said. “So we'll execute campaigns against those bid packages. We've got all the basic filtering by geography and trade types.”

Contractors across the board are a good fit for the software according to Hellin, but in particular, contractors involved in publicly financed housing, education, and other institutional projects will find Pegbo attractive as a tool to meet requirements for minority owned subcontractors or disabled veteran owned or certified small businesses, or other certifications.

“We help you finding the subs in the first place, and then we offer tools to actually do the engagement,” Hellin said. “So you can call directly from Pegbo, you can email out directly from Pegbo, using a template that has basic project details and links to more information on the project. We also document all of that outreach again for compliance purposes on projects where that's an issue and then, at the click of a button, we can generate automatically a good faith effort report, which has a full detail of all the trade partners that were contacted, all the call logs, all the email logs, all of the outreach … We also have functionality on the spend tracking side, to document spend against those different certification types.”

Who is Pegbo For?

Like many construction software startups, Pegbo targets the ENR 400, but also is a fit for middle market contractors.

“The sweet spot for us is if they do have some kind of focus on the public financing projects, whether it's schools, affordable housing, hospitals, civic—anything,” Hellin said. “But we do increase big coverage across all project types. So sometimes, GCs that are focusing on new geographies and don't have as much of a network themselves want access to our network to grow from there.”

Pegbo Pricing

The software can be had through per project pricing, where they can use the platform for a specific project, or through a subscription model where they have unlimited seats and unlimited projects for a specific state. Larger general contractors that are doing work all over the country can, according to Hellin, negotiate enterprise pricing.

When pressed, Hellin said Pegbo may be able to negotiate price points for smaller projects, or if a contractor wants to use the product just on specific trade disciplines on a product. This may not continue to be the case as Pegbo grows its customer base, so now is a good time give Pegbo a try.

BOTTOM LINE: Pegbo is laser focused on a specific problem faced by a large industry, and this bodes well for it in the market. Too many construction startups we see may have that big, hairy idea, a pie-in-the-sky problem they want to solve for everybody that makes investors see broad market potential. The fact that companies like Autodesk with their BuildingConnected product, Planhub and Procore need to maximize engagement their customers get with subcontractors bodes well for Pegbo—these and other software vendors will want them to ride along into their customer base and even help them close new deals.  I’ll look forward to learning more about Pegbo, but at this juncture, contractors engaged in public financing projects like schools, affordable housing, hospitals, anything civic, should be interested in learning more as well.