Tengo untangles the messy world of public sector procurement with AI

Tengo makes use of AI to search out, consider and reply to public tenders. It’s a software-as-service instrument that helps firms deal with public tenders at scale — a bit like Govly within the U.S. Initially created throughout 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 vital sources. In France alone, there are greater than 200 platforms that host public tenders. And even should you determine alternatives, it requires fairly a little bit of time to place collectively a robust software.

That’s why many firms depend on freelancers or consulting companies to outsource this sort of work. However Tengo believes that know-how may probably simplify your entire worth chain of public tenders.

“In France, the Authorities spends half a billion euros daily — the Authorities in a broad sense, together with ministries, areas, departments, parapublic companies, cities, and so on,” Tengo co-founder and CEO Hugues Renou informed TechCrunch. “In concrete phrases, it’s roundabouts, college chairs or a coaching service.”

Purchasers 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 normally extraordinarily exact to keep away from corruption or overspending. So firms typically find yourself studying by way 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 consumer is OpenClassrooms. “Tenders for coaching programs are revealed daily. Nonetheless, they’re solely fascinated about coaching programs which can be 100% on-line,” Renou stated. As a substitute of parsing by way of paperwork, Tengo identifies this aspect robotically in addition to 40 different standards.

As you’ll have guessed, Tengo makes use of synthetic intelligence to investigate the data contained in these paperwork. It could possibly spotlight key points but in addition reference vital 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 functions which can be at the moment in progress. Workers can add feedback and share a young with one other staff member. Tengo clients may also 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 positive 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 modify to a different service.

Finally, Tengo hopes that a number of Tengo clients will be capable to 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 degree of experience that large firms don’t, but in addition as a result of it’s a method to make use of public cash to fund many extra firms within the economic system,” Renou stated.

The startup, which was based final yr, remains to be in its early days because it has solely attracted dozens of shoppers. However a few of its first shoppers embody OpenClassrooms, Citron, Theodo and Carrefour Professional. Now, let’s see if it could actually flip this product work right into a profitable enterprise as there are greater than 40,000 firms that reply to public tenders in France.