AI-powered Tendl raises $2 million to make tendering easier
Summary
Queensland AI-powered tendering platform Tendl has secured $2 million in pre-seed funding. According to the startup, the new funding will be used to expand Tendls development team and accelerate the companys market growth globally.The funding round was led by Australian venture capital firm Tidal Ventures and followed by Startmate, 77 Partners, Brisbane Angels and Aussie Angels.Tendl, which was founded in 2024 by CEO Laurie Nicol and is based in Toowoomba, is an AI-based platform that is designed to streamline the tendering process for government suppliers and make it easier for businesses to write, submit and complete their tenders through automated workflows.Speaking with SmartCompany, Nicol confirmed the $2 million will be used to grow Tendls development team, while also expanding Tendls operations both in Australia and overseas.Weve already got customers that are tendering in the UK, the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, so were really using the investment to expand our presence in those markets and pick up a few more customers across the globe, but also growing out the development team, he says.Up until now, Ive been solo. I wrote the software, I spoke to customers and I did all the marketing.So its that opportunity to really grow the team and hire some more domain-specific experts, people who can help to run the engineering team, build the tool, and allow me to go and pursue the sales side of things.Our goal for the expansion is really to be global and to be looking at customers that are tendering.Tendl has already kickstarted the hiring process, with one engineer starting on Monday and another engineer lined up.According to the World Bank, the global government procurement market represents $10 trillion in annual spending.Public procurement accounts for 13% of gross domestic product in OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries, with $99 billion in Australian government procurement alone last year.Nicol says Tendl benefits businesses by reducing the amount of time they spend on tenders.When tendering, youre essentially spending hours of your staffs time. Sometimes your most senior, most expensive and most experienced staff are writing your tender response, and theres no guarantee that youre going to win that tender.Generally you might win one in three, one in five, one in 10, sometimes even less and so that means that youre spending a lot of time on an activity that you have no guarantee youre going to get a return.According to Nicol, Tendl will also help improve a firms chances of success.Youre able to reuse your responses better, youre able to come up with better and new responses to tenders without having to spend hours of your most expensive resource filling out the answers, he says.So thats a really big time saver for businesses, and its time saving on an activity where they had no guarantee of success. So they kind of have to share that across all of their opportunities.But equally, they cant stop tendering, because tendering is kind of the lifeblood that, if youre a government contractor, all of your revenue comes through tendering, and if you stop doing it, you stop making revenue.Never miss a story: sign up to SmartCompanys free daily newsletter and find our best stories on LinkedIn.