BRM CEO on Bottom-Up Procurement
James McGillicuddy, CEO of BRM, on the problem with “little P” procurement
The core shift is that procurement software is moving from finance owned process control to employee level buying assistance. Zip starts where a request enters the system and routes approvals, Ramp and Brex start at the card and bill, and BRM starts by stitching together every record tied to a vendor so teams can understand what they already use, what is renewing, and what needs compliance review before more spend leaks out.
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Legacy tools like Ariba and Coupa were built for formal procurement teams. The newer stack exists because self serve SaaS pushed purchasing to product, IT, and business teams that often buy first and ask finance later, creating scattered contracts, duplicate tools, and missed approval steps.
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The new category is splitting by workflow. Zip is an orchestration layer for intake, approvals, purchase orders, and payments. Ramp and Brex extend outward from cards, bill pay, and expense controls. BRM positions around vendor identity, renewals, and due diligence, and can sit alongside Zip rather than replace it.
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This is also a business model shift. Zip sells software to procurement teams. Ramp and Brex monetize a mix of software and payment rails at far larger scale, with estimated 2025 annualized revenue of $1B for Ramp and $700M for Brex. BRM prices by vendors under management, treating procurement work more like an automated service than seats in a workflow tool.
The market is heading toward a rebundled buying stack where intake, payment, contracts, and vendor intelligence are connected by AI. The winners will be the products that become the daily system of action for renewals, approvals, and vendor reviews, because once a tool owns that loop, it can expand from preventing bad spend to actively steering how a company buys.