Technology consulting firm Endava has launched a program that aims to help enterprises find and procure new IT products more efficiently.

The program, Dava.Rise, will map out the technology pain points faced by participating organizations. It will then connect those organizations with startups whose products can address their pain points. Endava’s role will be to provide the professional services necessary to take Dava.Rise projects to production.

London-based Endava has more than 11,000 employees worldwide. It helps organizations with software development tasks such as building data analytics environments. Additionally, the firm has a managed services unit that maintains and secures its clients’ IT infrastructure. Beyond the IT world, Endava assists companies with marketing initiatives such as personalizing ad campaigns.

Dava.Rise will help enterprises adopt technologies developed by a particular type of startup: scale-ups, ventures with product-market fit and fast revenue growth. For the participating scale-ups, the program will work similarly to a startup accelerator. Endava plans to provide participants with go-to-market support, technical guidance and various other resources.

“We’re equipping participating scale-ups with a go-to-market and technical enablement programme to help them become truly enterprise-ready,” Lorenzo Magni, the head of Dava.Rise at Endava, told Boardroom Insight. “Our teams will work closely with founders to refine customer engagement strategies, strengthen sales narratives, and develop technical blueprints that demonstrate scalability and real-world value in enterprise environments.”

There are several reasons why an enterprise might choose to procure startup products through Dava.Rise instead of buying them directly from the source. Many of those reasons have to do with mitigating IT risks.

Before large companies buy a product from a startup, they carry out a review to ensure that it meets their cybersecurity requirements. That review involves highly technical questionnaires and quite a bit of manual work. Teaming up with a startup technology sourcing partner can reduce the amount of effort involved in determining a startup’s trustworthiness. 

There are also other factors at play. Before committing to a relatively unproven startup product, a company needs to make sure that the product fully meets its requirements and that there isn’t a better, more cost-efficient option out there. In some cases, it’s also important to check whether a startup has sufficient financial runway. If an enterprise plans to use a startup-developed server for 10 years but that startup only has enough funding for 3 years, it could lose access to technical support early. Bringing in an extra pair of eyes to go over those questions can make IT teams’ work easier.

“By validating robustness, security, and compliance upfront, we remove the friction typically associated with early-stage adoption, enabling innovation to flow more freely between those who create it and those best placed to scale it,” Magni explained.

The first Dava.Rise scale-up cohort will mainly be based in the UK. Endava plans to expand the program internationally next year. The firm will also form industry-specific scale-up cohorts focused on large verticals such as the finance, healthcare and auto sectors.

Photo courtesy of Endava