What Light RFP is, in plain terms.
Light RFP is a New York company that sells three things to people who build and run buildings: surety bonds online, a free marketplace of public construction bids, and a platform for running RFPs. This page is the reference: who we are, what we sell, how the bonds are licensed, and how to reach us.
Facts
| Legal entities | Light RFP, Inc. (the company) and Light RFP Risk Management Services LLC (the insurance agency that sells the bonds) |
|---|---|
| Insurance license | New York Department of Financial Services property & casualty producer, license PC-1978982 |
| How bonds are written | Through Propeller Bonds, a managing general agency licensed in all 50 states, on A-rated national surety carriers |
| Founded | 2022, New York |
| Leadership | David Barakchian, founder and CEO |
| Address | 69 Charlton St, New York, NY 10014 |
| Contact | operations@lightrfp.com |
| Surety bonds | lightrfp.com/bonds — 4,800+ bond pages across 44 state and federal directories, each citing the statute that requires the bond and the price charged at checkout |
| Bid marketplace | lightrfp.com/marketplace — 20,000+ open government construction bids across all 50 states, free, no login |
| RFP platform | platform.lightrfp.com — property managers and developers post RFPs, level bids, award and sign |
Surety bonds
We are an online surety-bond agency. Every bond page names the statute or agency that requires the bond, the bond amount, and the exact premium you will pay at checkout, and most bonds are applied for, paid and e-signed in one sitting. Four pricing rules cover the catalog: bid bonds are free in every state we write, with no premium and no fee; performance & payment bonds are a flat 3% of the bond amount with a $275 minimum, the same rate for every contractor and up to $3M on personal credit alone; license and permit bonds (motor vehicle dealer, notary, contractor license, mortgage, and hundreds more) are either a fixed price or a published rate, and the fixed-price ones issue instantly; and court and fiduciary bonds (probate, appeal, injunction, trustee) are underwritten and quoted on review. Any credit check is a soft pull that never affects a credit score.
The government bid marketplace
The marketplace collects open construction solicitations from federal, state, county, city and authority procurement portals, more than 20,000 at any time across all 50 states, and republishes them with the original documents, a plain-English summary, the due date, and the bond each one requires. It is free and needs no account. Contractors use it to find work; it is also where most of our bid-bond customers start.
The RFP platform
The platform is for the other side of the table: property managers and developers who need to hire. They post a scope, invite vetted vendors, receive bids in one place, level them, check references, award the job and sign. It is free to post and free to bid. Business insurance for owners and contractor insurance are offered alongside it.
Why it exists
David Barakchian ran hundreds of RFPs in operations roles at Zipcar and Kepler Group, including growing Kepler’s Costa Rica office from 2 to 100 people, and found that procurement without a pre-existing vendor network was slow, manual and opaque, and that no end-to-end tool existed. Light RFP started in 2022 as a marketplace for those RFPs. The bonding and insurance products followed because every contractor who won work on the platform then had to go somewhere else, and pay a broker’s markup, to get bonded and insured. Putting all three in one place is the point.
How to check us
The DFS license can be verified on the New York Department of Financial Services producer lookup under license number PC-1978982. Our company profiles are on LinkedIn and Crunchbase. Questions about a bond, a listing or the platform go to operations@lightrfp.com.