Tengo uses AI to find, evaluate and respond to public tenders. It’s a software-as-a-service tool that helps companies handle large-scale public tenders – a bit like Govly in the US. Originally created at startup studio Hexa, the startup raised a €3 million funding round led by Point Nine ($3.2 million at current exchange rates).
For most companies, public tenders represent a large untapped market because they require significant resources. In France alone, there are more than 200 platforms that host public tenders. And even if you identify opportunities, it will take a little time to put together a strong application.
This is why many companies rely on freelancers or consultancies to outsource this type of work. But Tengo believes that technology could potentially simplify the entire public procurement value chain.
“In France, the government spends half a billion euros every day – the government in the broadest sense, including ministries, regions, departments, parapublic agencies, cities, etc,” Tengo co-founder and CEO Hugues Renou told TechCrunch. “In concrete terms, they are roundabouts, school chairs or a training service.”
Clients first create a feed of public tenders by defining their criteria. After that, Tengo scans all public portals that host bids to find new bids that meet these criteria.
Public tenders are usually extremely precise to avoid corruption or excessive spending. Therefore, companies often end up reading documents that can be up to 50 pages long and that describe what the Government is looking for.
One of Tengo’s clients is OpenClassrooms. “Competitions for training courses are published every day. However, they are only interested in 100% online training courses,” said Renou. Instead of analyzing documents, Tengo identifies this element automatically, as well as 40 other criteria.
As you may have guessed, Tengo uses artificial intelligence to analyze the information contained in these documents. It can highlight important aspects, but also reference important pages.
Like many modern software-as-a-service tools, Tengo also acts as a central repository for everything related to public procurement. Companies get an overview of all applications that are in progress. Employees can add comments and share a proposal with another team member. Tengo customers can also receive alerts when a bid is about to expire and be renewed.
And when it comes time to submit an application, Tengo has built-in AI integrations to generate documents. I’m sure many companies are already using ChatGPT or another LLM-powered chat assistant to respond to public tenders. But with Tengo integration, you don’t need to switch to another service.
Eventually, Tengo expects that several Tengo customers will be able to collaborate and submit a joint bid for a public tender. “The Government encourages SMEs to compete for public contracts, because they have a level of specialization that large companies do not have, but also because it is a way of using public money to finance many more companies in the economy,” said Renou.
The startup, founded last year, is still in its infancy as it has only attracted dozens of customers. But some of its first clients include OpenClassrooms, Citron, Theodo and Carrefour Pro. Now, let’s see if it can turn this product work into a successful business, as there are more than 40,000 companies responding to public tenders in France.
