Tengo makes use of AI to search out, consider and reply to public tenders. It’s a software-as-service software that helps firms deal with public tenders at scale — a bit like Govly within the U.S. Initially created inside the startup studio Hexa, the startup has raised a €3 million funding spherical led by Level 9 ($3.2 million at present alternate charges).
For many firms, public tenders characterize a big untapped market as a result of they require important assets. In France alone, there are greater than 200 platforms that host public tenders. And even when you determine alternatives, it requires fairly a little bit of time to place collectively a powerful software.
That’s why many firms depend on freelancers or consulting companies to outsource the sort of work. However Tengo believes that expertise might doubtlessly simplify the complete worth chain of public tenders.
“In France, the Authorities spends half a billion euros on daily basis — the Authorities in a broad sense, together with ministries, areas, departments, parapublic businesses, cities, and so on,” Tengo co-founder and CEO Hugues Renou advised TechCrunch. “In concrete phrases, it’s roundabouts, faculty chairs or a coaching service.”
Shoppers first create a feed of public tenders by defining their standards. After that, Tengo scans all the general public portals that host tenders to search out new tenders that may match these standards.
Public tenders are often extraordinarily exact to keep away from corruption or overspending. So firms usually find yourself studying by means of paperwork that may be as much as 50 pages lengthy and describe what the Authorities is in search of.
One in every of Tengo’s shopper is OpenClassrooms. “Tenders for coaching programs are printed on daily basis. Nevertheless, they’re solely serious about coaching programs which can be 100% on-line,” Renou mentioned. As a substitute of parsing by means of paperwork, Tengo identifies this aspect robotically in addition to 40 different standards.
As you might have guessed, Tengo makes use of synthetic intelligence to research the data contained in these paperwork. It will possibly spotlight key points but in addition reference necessary pages.
Like many trendy software-as-a-service instruments, Tengo additionally acts because the central repository for all issues associated to public tenders. Firms get an summary of all of the purposes which can be at present in progress. Staff can add feedback and share a young with one other workforce member. Tengo prospects may obtain alerts when a young is about to run out and get renewed.
And when it’s time to submit an software, Tengo has built-in AI integrations to generate paperwork. I’m certain many firms are utilizing ChatGPT or one other LLM-powered chat assistant to reply public tenders already. However with Tengo’s integration, you don’t have to change to a different service.
Finally, Tengo hopes that a number of Tengo prospects will be capable of collaborate and supply a joint software to a public tender. “The Authorities encourages SMEs to bid for public contracts, as a result of they’ve a stage of experience that massive firms don’t, but in addition as a result of it’s a means to make use of public cash to fund many extra firms within the financial system,” Renou mentioned.
The startup remains to be in its early days because it has solely attracted dozens of shoppers. However a few of its first shoppers embrace OpenClassrooms, Citron, Theodo and Carrefour Professional. Now, let’s see if it may possibly flip this product work right into a profitable enterprise as there are greater than 40,000 firms that reply to public tenders in France.
