Dutch startup opens London office to expand into the UK while introducing agentic AI to automate bidding processes
Amsterdam and London, June 9, 2025 – Altura, an AI-powered bid management startup, has raised €8 million (£6.7M / $9.2M) in Series A funding as it becomes the first to launch autonomous AI agents to help businesses win more public and private sector tenders, particularly as procurement processes grow more complex. The funding will be used to scale operations and expand into the UK market with a new London office.
The round was led by leading European venture capital firm Octopus Ventures, with existing investors Fortino Capital, Curiosity VC and Perry Oostdam & Pawel Smoczyk of P1ST investors also participating.
“Bid management is an essential function in many companies, directly linked to companies’ top-line growth,” said Constanza Diaz, Investor at Octopus Ventures. “Altura is redefining what modern bid processes look like through its AI-powered solution, giving teams the automation and insights they need to operate at the next level. We are proud to welcome Altura to the Octopus Ventures portfolio and support the team in its UK expansion.”
Organisations are increasingly turning to formal tenders and Request for Proposal (RFP) processes to reduce procurement risk, with public tenders alone rising by 28% in the UK in the last three years*. These tenders demand increasingly complex information, creating a mounting burden for bid managers who must navigate lengthy submission processes while coordinating input from legal, compliance, technical, and other specialist teams. Large government contracts, for example, can be worth millions, justifying the weeks of effort and hundreds of hours that bid teams invest. Yet despite this significant investment, Altura's research reveals that 67% of bid teams remain unsatisfied with their win rates, while 98% fail to leverage data effectively across their bid processes.
Altura launched its software in 2021 and has established a strong presence in Benelux, supporting several major brands, including Adecco, EY, and Ricoh.
Matthijs Huiskamp, Founder & CEO, Altura, said: “We see the UK as a perfect next step for Altura. While AI is still in the early stages of adoption in bid management, the UK is one of Europe’s largest markets, with £350 billion spent annually on public sector procurement. With the new Procurement Act, we see an even bigger need for Bid Management software, since this will enable and encourage even more companies to participate in tenders. This creates more demand for software such as ours that helps companies work more efficiently to win more bids.”
Altura’s end-to-end platform supports every stage of the bid management lifecycle, centralising knowledge, streamlining workflows, and helping companies win more tenders. Over the past year, the company has integrated AI tools powered by Large Language Models (LLMs) to assist with tasks such as searching internal data, summarising complex information, and generating high-quality proposal content. Beyond writing support, the platform also automates time-consuming tasks like identifying and scraping relevant tenders from across the web, surfacing insights to guide bid/no-bid decisions, and analysing performance to improve future outcomes. An AI co-pilot is always on screen, helping bid managers work faster, smarter, and more strategically.
With this new funding, Altura is taking the next leap forward: introducing true agentic AI capabilities. These autonomous agents go beyond traditional AI tools by not just assisting users, but actively completing tasks and making decisions on their behalf, solving some of the most time-consuming and complex challenges bid manager’s face today.
“At Altura, we are turning the static bid book into an intelligent hub that connects sales, legal and every subject-matter expert while learning from each interaction,” said Matthijs Huiskamp. “Our autonomous AI agents draw on that collective knowledge to draft answers, flag risks and surface win-loss insights, freeing teams from copy-paste work so they can focus on strategy. This investment accelerates that vision, and our London launch will bring it into one of the world’s busiest tender markets, giving UK organisations the speed and clarity they need to win more deals.”
The company previously raised a €3m seed round in 2024, from Curiosity, Fortino Capital and Perry Oostdam & Pawel Smoczyk of P1ST investors.
*Based on data from FTS (Find a Tender) https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Search
About Altura
Altura is the leading end-to-end bid management platform that helps bid teams win more by centralising the proposal process and integrating AI at every stage. Trusted by high-performing teams across industries such as technology, professional services, and construction, Altura enables organisations to scale proposal output, reduce workload, and increase win rates.
Founded in 2021 in the Netherlands, Altura has rapidly expanded its operations, serving enterprise customers across the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, and the UK. In 2025, Altura further strengthened its market presence by opening a second office in London, complementing its headquarters in Amsterdam.
Learn more at https://altura.io/en
About Octopus Ventures
Octopus Ventures, part of Octopus Investments, is one of the largest and most active venture capital investors in the UK and Europe. We’re on a mission to invest in the people, ideas and industries that will change the world.
We back entrepreneurs ─ from the first cheque their business receives, right through to IPO. We manage £1.6bn and are investing in more than 180 businesses, focusing on the companies solving three of the world’s biggest problems: those building a sustainable planet, empowering people, and revitalising healthcare.
We know what it takes to build a successful business. We support founders through our strong teams, sector expertise and deep networks, using our People + Talent to help them build a better tomorrow.
Media Contacts
Uday Radia, CloudNinePR, uradia@cloudninepr.com, +44 (0)7940 584161
Erik Brandt, Altura, erik.brandt@altura.io +31 6 30 30 44 77,
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