EP 016: Startup of the Week: FlockScore W/ Matthew Spencer

0:15Welcome to this episode of Art of Procurement's Startup of the Week series. I'm your host, Jothi Hartley. These Startup of the Week conversations allow us to shine a light on the tech startups challenging and revolutionizing the digital procurement ecosystem. In just 20 minutes we dig into each organization's origin story and value proposition and explore how they solve business challenges in a unique way. Our provider and startup of the week conversations are the only formats at Art of Procurement that focus specifically on a company's product. Today, we are introducing Floxcore. Floxcore is a platform designed to bring transparency to a supplier performance by sharing real-time insights based on peer reviews.

1:07With a unique Contribute to Access model, companies can access valuable supplier insights without the need for costly subscriptions. To tell us more about Flock Score, I'm delighted to welcome Matthew Spencer, founder of Flock Score. Over the past decade, Matthew has worked across complex supply chains to improve supply performance, embed sustainability and connect business goals with operational realities. His focus is on creating real impact, not just better processes, but stronger, more responsible supply chains. Thank you for being our Startup of the Week, Matthew.

1:49Matthew Spencer: I'm really happy to be here with you, Geoffrey. Awesome. So to start us off, Matthew, please tell us what does Phloxcore do? I think you already did a pretty good job of it in the intro. But what we're doing is we're building collective intelligence layer for supplier decisions. So what that really means is we aggregate anonymized real-world performance data across manufacturers. and the result is that it helps procurement teams make faster, better and lower risk supplier decisions. Okay, so if we can go back to the beginning, I suppose, right, way, way, way, way, way back. What was the inspiration to start Flock Score?

2:29Like what did you see was the gap? What did you want to fix? Yeah, so the big gap really is something that seems obvious for us in procurement,

2:40Matthew Spencer: but when you really think about it, it is not. And that's that we make multi-million euro decisions today with very little operational foresight. So we validate, for example, certifications, financials. We even do, when you think about direct procurement, a lot of technical capability checks. But we have very little information on how a supply is actually going to perform when we start real production. So this is a lot different than testing in a lab how the material works, but really is that supply going to deliver to you on time consistently? What happens if there's an issue? It's these operational issues, which when you don't see upfront, it introduces a lot of risk.

3:18Matthew Spencer: And in the end, you end up wasting time and also money. But for me, if I take a small anecdote, exactly when I realized it was when I was responsible in the Procurement Center of Excellence for Supply Management. And we were making a five-year roadmap of things we want to work on. This was about four years ago. And you can imagine the first couple of years, it was really about how do we optimize our current processes? So looking at our internal supplier scorecarding, how do we have scorecards that give meaningful feedback? How do we better automate that, improve communication with suppliers? On the third year, I had put there in the roadmap that by then we would expect to see this point.

3:57Matthew Spencer: Why do we only see our internal perspective on supplier performance? Imagine if we could look beyond our own company scorecard, which is a good piece of information and see the full picture. There's been so much progress in already or at least movement at that time starting to form on supply chain transparency. The prediction was in three years time, we should hope to start to see that similar kind of movement in other areas as well. Areas that can bring more value additionally on top of the work that's being done, the good work on, for example, sustainability. But we got to the three year period.

4:32Matthew Spencer: This was the time to start working on that. looked at the market nothing existed and for me that was a trigger to say this doesn't make sense somebody needs to build it I have the experience um let's get started yeah okay so thank you for explaining the the background and where you saw the gap um how did you how do you sense check that with with customers or um how did you make sure that that was a definitely a gap in the market how did you ratify that who did you talk to yeah so of course I have my own procurement experience but that's not enough to kick something off like this so I first spent the first months actually connecting with discussing with senior procurement leaders across different industries and basically checking with them to understand what I saw as this gap and the potential value it can bring to our industry do they see it as well and it was a resounding yes they also highlighted some challenges i'll get back to later but but for me the real aha moment was also bringing on board my co-founder thomas cambie who is handling the product and tech side started to join me on procurement events and also check within his network and see again the same feedback coming back so even in industries which we're not focusing on today we see this potential to expand because they're facing exactly the same issue so when you're starting on your own you obviously have this kind of perception like is it something just i'm seeing um so after speaking with a lot of people but then also having somebody outside of the film and go and have those conversations and see exactly the same again is showing you know this is a repeatable problem validated by many people um what to say though right path there's two things one thing is that people want the end result the other thing is there are challenges to reach it which is what makes it interesting problem.

6:15Matthew Spencer: What made me think, yes, we're on the right path, is that the challenges that were being raised were also consistently the same ones and are also the ones that we are tackling. So this is really about how to make sure that this is a secure, anonymized, balanced, and scalable approach. And that's exactly what we focused on at Flop School. Okay. Yeah, we're going to go into a little bit more detail in a moment. Thank you for that. So so what was the early feedback from customers and I think it's a great opportunity when you're going to conferences and events because that that honest feedback or honest opinions is um is really valuable so what were you what were you hearing what were what the customers saying that helped you shape your product and what was the thing that's you would highlight the most yeah I mean the first thing we often get is surprise, which is always also nice to receive.

7:10Matthew Spencer: And what I can say is we're still actively co-creating with our customers. So this is an ongoing basis. But what we have really seen from today is this positive surprise in seeing what we have, but also already immediately having feedback on what other insights would be useful to actually take from this data that we're building on. So what our customers so far and the feedback we've had of driven us to do is to move from having this collective supplier scorecard to how do we turn our platform into a decision driver for new suppliers so what what more detailed insights are the need can we take so i give a couple of examples like um seeing the trend in the performance of the supplier is is is one key one or being able to see and compare um this supplier has certain rate of result on delivery how does that compare to others in the same industry all these things that practitioners are bringing where they say if I knew this I could make a decision and that's our that that's what they're driving us towards moving towards being a decision driver okay thank you if we can turn our attention a little bit to the procurement landscape specifically because we all know that technology solutions like this doesn't operate in a in isolation it works in an ecosystem what would you say the changes that are in the happening in the in the procure tech landscape today or even in the wider procurement landscape what makes your solution especially relevant now today cool there's a lot of questions in in one really because there's the landscape and then there's the procure tech piece if i take the landscape and the challenges of procurement first um i'd say there's two main drivers of why flot score is so beneficial right now the first one is about current geopolitical situation that we're in which is just continuously um hitting us in procurement and keeping us on our toes and what that is really doing is driving a need to be for procurement to be more agile to be able to change suppliers faster and the reality is especially when you start to think about manufacturing is that qualification of suppliers is a topic which has not developed anywhere near the speed that we've seen risk evolve over the past years we need to be able to be more agile but keep the same level of confidence because the risk is also huge so this is a key point which drives how Fluxco can help you be more confident in those decisions early.

9:44Matthew Spencer: The other piece, I mean, there's many research papers being released on that, but also what I saw as a red thread in 2025 in procurement events was this topic of, of course, agentic AI. The fact that we've moved from, let's say, pilots to implementing, but what kept coming back was data. The challenge with data, having the right data to actually move from more of a co-pilot to real agentic AI, taking more ownership over that flow. We know that AI doesn't work well, obviously, with intuition. And today, procurement is still working with quite a lot of intuition. So at the same point as that, Fluxcore is bringing a data point that can help teams actually to leverage agentic AI capabilities further than they are able to today.

10:30Matthew Spencer: So those are two main drivers. Why now when you look at the trends moving in the general procurement space that we see. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that does make sense. You talked a little bit about how in the manufacturing space, I guess, not everyone has reached that aha moment themselves. Sometimes if we think a little bit about how some of the other industry sectors, like finance, for example, anything, any that have been heavily regulated, um pharma med tech and so on um would you could you talk a little bit about what make what you see of the misconceptions that companies decision makers may have about your about the problem that you're trying to solve what are what are the challenges that you're still finding yeah um i think what you mentioned about like a disruption or transformation of more traditional industries is basically the core problem or core misconception that's affecting what we're doing today.

11:38Matthew Spencer: So what I mean by that is the biggest challenge is that today still a lot of people assume this is how we've always worked in procurement, this information is not available, it must be like that for a reason, you know, like this is how it needs to be. So it's this transitional mindset change which only happens over time so what we're seeing today and what we're facing is i mean it's a gradual education of this approach but we're also seeing this transition the usual innovation curve of you start working first with the innovators then you have the early adopters and and i'd say the really positive thing in procurement right now is that we're seeing a stronger and stronger cluster i would say of organizations who want to be early innovators who want to work with startups and to basically take advantage of all that tech can do for you in procurement today.

12:31Matthew Spencer: But I'd say that's the biggest one for me is that, you know, we still think that it's something that doesn't exist for a reason. But then if in your personal life, you're choosing a hotel, you're choosing your new phone, you're buying anything, you look at your price. The second thing you're always going to look at is, you know, source that information from the crowd. What are other experiences? Yeah. If we can think about you as a startup again, just, you know, what has surprised you most about building a procurement specifically startup? Yeah. It's interesting what I reflect on it quite a bit because of course I come from the other side.

13:12Matthew Spencer: So working in procurement where I've also implemented tools. And I have to say, of course, I was aware of the value of working with startups and of working on innovation but until you move to the startup side you you don't fully appreciate um how valuable it is actually um to have corporate companies who are willing to co-create with you who are willing to be an early innovator and the impact that actually has in terms of acceleration of the product so for me that is the biggest takeaway and also now um as i still work at work in the procurement space whenever i see an opportunity to support a startup I jump on it because I see absolutely the value also the impact what you invest in terms of your time and introduction versus the impact it has on the other side in terms of innovation acceleration there's a massive payoff there yeah okay so if you put yourself um I don't know maybe in the shoes of a procurement person so if you can imagine yourself as as one of those um what is your biggest friction point that you are facing as a team member and what does your product address first?

14:25Matthew Spencer: Yeah in the shortest time like as soon as you start working with Fluxcore the the first friction point is solving for you is about speed and certainty in your decision making so if you imagine that you're having to try and find an alternative for a certain piece maybe because there's a geopolitical reason that you need to move your supply chain. BlockScore gives you the data to have confidence very early in the process. So you can back the supplier, you can move ahead faster. So this gives you that certainty. It also means that the chance that you're actually going to have wasted time going through detailed technical validation for it then not to work out is gone.

15:05Matthew Spencer: So that's then the midpoint. And then much later down the line, what you're going to see as continuous returns is the risk reduction and the performance optimization of your supply chain. But the very first point that you will have benefit is this. I'm able now to suggest a new supplier for an important part in my company's product quite quickly and with confidence that it is actually going to perform because I can see based on other companies that have worked with it, have bought some of the products that they are performing in the areas that matter to me. And I think that is the key first friction point.

15:41Matthew Spencer: that we solve for procurement teams. Yeah, so I think where you're going almost was, I think what I'm thinking of next in terms of procurement and finance teams, for example, they're always looking at ROI, they're looking at the value proposition, et cetera. What ROI or impact are they looking for when they come to you? What are you helping them with? Yeah. So I'd say like three main levers on that that we can support. The first is the faster decision cycles, which is important when you want to be more agile, but one that's slightly harder to measure from an ROI perspective. The second one is the cost of poor quality, which is a much more tangible one because the impact of that is really huge.

16:27Matthew Spencer: It depends on the maturity of organization, how much visibility on that is. But if you haven't done the research or any company listening hasn't done the research i'd really suggest to do it and look at benchmarks because you'd be surprised how much hidden cost there is actually in poor performing suppliers that you're working with um but the biggest bucket is on disruption because disruption individual supply chain disruptions can cost millions in impact um research is showing majority of companies are facing them and also not feeling resilient today so this is the main piece actually is reduction of potential disruptions caused by operational related issues yeah so ultimately the the end roi is higher supply chain resilience but those are the three levels that actually get you to it yeah yeah thank you that's nicely explained nice and clear thank you um if we look at the actual product itself now um and the the model that you have um how does that fit within the broader procurement tech stack that a decision-maker procurement, you know, procurement user will be having to navigate themselves through?

17:35How does your product align itself or fit within, fit there?

17:41Matthew Spencer: Yeah, so we sit alongside existing systems. So this is really important part to highlight about our whole model. So from the beginning, we have been intentionally very lightweight. There's no forced standardization. There's no heavy IT project. There's also no overlap with the tools that you are working with today. So we can easily sit alongside ERP if you have an SRM solution. This is specifically an external supplier performance lens or layer that you can put on top of those systems. And I'd say we fit very well in this trend now in the Prokeletech landscape of trying to find the best solution to tackle a certain niche topic.

18:21Matthew Spencer: and to integrate that easily into your workflow to build then your entire stack. And that's where Flux Quartizing extremely easily because like I mentioned, you can get started almost instantly. No heavy project upfront and then you can integrate via API once the value is proven. Getting started is smooth and easy to layer with your current tools. Nice, nice. And I'm sure that influenced your technology design or the choices that you made when you were putting the product together, what were the most important features or design choices at the time when you were building? Yeah, I really like the question.

19:03Matthew Spencer: And it ties a lot back, like you mentioned, to that piece of what we're trying to do, focusing specifically on this niche. Because that's also how we differentiate ourselves is this is not a side feature for us. This is the main one. This is what we are delivering value from. And so all of our design has been focused on that. it's about how can we reach scale in having this external data layer on supply performance. So the key things that we focused on, the first one, and why I mentioned it first is because it's the absolute foundation, is that from the very beginning, we put emphasis on data security and on our, basically the piece of anonymization.

19:40Matthew Spencer: So basically making sure that companies can contribute the data with absolute confidence that there is no risk of any sensitive information being shared. So that has been built right into the foundation of the platform to the point that by the time you see a scorecard in our platform, you're not able to find any, even at the back end, linked back to who has contributed. This is all entirely secure. So this is the key point, because that is setting the trust as a foundation to build on. The next piece for us was about if we want to make it scalable, it needs to be frictionless. So a little bit tied back to the point about it being lightweight.

20:16Matthew Spencer: Today, for example, companies that want to start with us, they literally provide us their data exactly as they have it today. We handle and automate the rest and get them set up in the system, basically. So it's that smooth. And the last piece, because at the end, we are building a data network, is that we have intentionally and carefully built in a combination of the peer data together with AI. So from the beginning, we also built agents which are basically looking and analyzing very specific supplier performance signals from information that can be either pulled or or scraped from one place or another what that means in practice is from day one you will always find in flock score every supplier that you want to compare so every other new customer they can search for a certain sourcing event, I want to check five suppliers, you will find every supplier very clearly indicated how much weight is put on peer data versus is it an AI, is it a predictive scorecard?

21:21Matthew Spencer: So that's clearly transparent, but we pull that and generate it. So from day one, you can have a full value. So those are the three points which tie together, which both differentiate us because it makes it a scalable model where we can also obviously offer it with a free tier very accessible pricing for our paid premium and instant start to value validation okay thank you um you mentioned signals there some of the supplier signals um without giving too much away are you are you able to share even one or two of those or give you an opportunity to answer a different question which is what would you say is the most overlooked capability in your solution?

22:06And if you can answer them both together, that's even better.

22:12Matthew Spencer: Yeah, this is a really good one. The signals, there are many examples to put, but I'll tie it in to answer those questions. So one important signal, a key factor is delivery related topics and capacity. So one key signal is being able to spot a capacity related issue which is impacting another customer. So if you can spot that up front before it's impacting you, instead of waiting when you're having issues with material not arriving at your site, you can proactively go to that supplier and this is in the case of an existing supplier, you can go to a supplier and you can ask them you've seen this issue coming up, is it going to impact us, what's the cause, you can be proactive in solving it when it's the cheapest to solve because risk the earlier you can catch risk the cheaper it is to solve so this is one example of a um a signal and and that also ties a bit to what i would say right now is our most overlooked capability and that is um our core is building up this layer about supply performance but what you can do with that is much more and this is where we're building towards now and that is about finding alternative suppliers so for example you have a signal in the platform that you're seeing one supplier is having capacity issues at the moment with other customers, you're able to directly compare against all other companies that can offer very similar products.

23:36Matthew Spencer: So basically what it means is our model is able to suggest for you, if you say, I'm working with this supplier, what's important to me is delivery, maybe service, innovation we we cover all the factors which are typically covered in a scorecard and then we will recommend to say um here is an alternative supplier for similar capabilities that's so by alternatives but has performance which is higher on the areas that matter for you and it's combining those pieces together where i say that is um today an overlooked piece because you first see the scorecards but in future i think that this is going to be um even layering multiples of value on top of the data that we're able to offer.

24:18Really interesting, really important as well. Just as we're wrapping up now, Matthew, how can a company get started with you if they want to try the product, see how that works for them and where can they go to learn more?

24:33Matthew Spencer: Yeah, so you can always visit our website, flockscorer.com or you can connect us on LinkedIn. But I would advise if you want to get started, please feel free to reach out to me directly. I'm always interested to have a chat with other procurement professionals and we're actively co-creating so if you want to get on board early let's get started the process is extremely simple from the first call we can show you immediately how that would work with your own use case then you share your after we sign agreements of course and we show you how we handle data very securely you share the data with us we handle the rest and then you get started so it's extremely fast to do for the first step just reach out to me more than happy to have a chat amazing thank you Matthew for this opportunity to learn more about your backstory and Flock Scores value proposition and thank you to everyone who joined us to learn more today thank you take care everybody thanks for listening to this episode of ProcureTech Insider if you found this conversation valuable you can subscribe to our ProcureTech specific newsletter The Stack Every Thursday, you'll get intelligence on ProcureTech companies, market developments and insights from practitioners delivered right to your inbox.

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