Tender247 is betting that a familiar face can help solve one of India's most persistent business discovery problems: how to navigate a public procurement market that is enormous in size, but fragmented across hundreds of portals and systems. By bringing actor Anupam Kher on board, the platform is aiming to widen awareness of a tender economy that touches everything from stationery purchases to steel contracts, and to make it easier for businesses to find, track and compete for government and institutional work.
The timing is significant. India's public procurement market is vast enough to shape the fortunes of manufacturers, contractors, suppliers and service providers across the country, yet it remains difficult to access in practice. The World Bank estimates public procurement at about 20% of India's GDP, implying a wider opportunity of roughly Rs 70 lakh crore. Government e Marketplace, or GeM, the central buying portal for ministries, public sector undertakings and departments, marked 10 years in August with cumulative purchases of Rs 20 lakh crore. Its annual buying has surged from Rs 422 crore in its first full year to more than Rs 5 lakh crore in each of the last two years.
But GeM is only one part of the picture. Central tenders above Rs 25 lakh are published on the Central Public Procurement Portal, or CPPP. The Indian Railways uses IREPS. Defence procurement is handled through defproc.gov.in. States operate through portals under GePNIC, while public sector companies such as Coal India, NTPC and Indian Oil publish separately. In other words, India's biggest customer does not have a single storefront. It has hundreds.
That fragmentation creates a practical barrier that many businesses, especially mid-sized firms, struggle to overcome. Tender trackers estimate that a serious bidder must monitor more than 30 portals, each with its own login, search logic and deadline structure. Even companies with dedicated business development teams can find it unrealistic to keep pace with every notice, amendment and closing date across the system.
Tender247 says that is where its platform comes in. The company tracks tenders from government bodies, public sector companies and large private buyers across hundreds of portals, then filters and surfaces opportunities that match a business's capabilities. Founder Pankaj Modi says the biggest problem is often not competitiveness, but visibility.
"When we sit with a mid-size manufacturer, the most common thing we hear isn't that they lost a bid. It's that they never knew the tender existed until after it closed. That's not a capability problem. That's a discovery problem, and it's a solvable one," Modi said.
The company's pitch is that much of tendering happens before a bid is ever submitted. Businesses must identify relevant notices, study what competitors quoted previously, prepare documents, coordinate internally and meet deadlines. Tender247 says its AI-driven system can identify relevant tenders, automate paperwork and give teams a shared view of the process, cutting the time required for a bid by roughly 90%. For smaller teams, that could mean the difference between chasing a handful of opportunities and competing for many more.
The broader policy backdrop suggests the opportunity is real. Digital procurement has already widened participation, particularly for smaller firms. Micro and small enterprises have won more than Rs 9 lakh crore on GeM, accounting for 45.6% of cumulative purchases and exceeding the mandated quota. An IIT Delhi study of 101 items from FY24 to FY26 also found GeM prices lower in 74.3% of cases, with savings of 13.6%, reinforcing the argument that digital procurement can improve both access and efficiency.
Yet efficiency on one portal does not solve the problem of fragmentation across the system. A business that never sees the right tender cannot benefit from lower transaction costs or better pricing. That is the gap Tender247 is trying to fill, and the reason the company is leaning on Anupam Kher's public recognition to broaden its reach.
The strategy reflects a larger shift in India's startup and enterprise software landscape, where discovery, compliance and workflow automation are becoming as important as the underlying market itself. In a procurement economy this large, the winners may not only be the firms that can deliver the work, but also those that can find the work in time.
For Tender247, the challenge now is to convert awareness into adoption in a market where information overload is common and missed deadlines can be costly. For businesses across India, the promise is simpler: a better chance to see the opportunity before it disappears behind another portal, another login and another closing date.