The first portfolio company of Oakvale Invest, Africa’s first AI-focused pre-seed fund, is the South African startup Tennsa, an AI business intelligence platform designed for SMEs.
Tennsa, a company based in Cape Town, is developing AI that works with humans because they believe that the promise of this technology has always been to improve lives and give people more time to be human. Tennsa OS, the company’s first product, is an always-on operational intelligence layer that links to the technologies a company already uses and reads them as one, revealing what has to be decided and why, simplifying daily operations and freeing up time for busy people.
“Artificial intelligence is supposed to give people easier lives and more time to be human. Most of what has been built so far has not done that, and the reason is not the technology, it is where people have chosen to point it. At Tennsa, we are building around people rather than in place of them, so that a business owner spends less of their life holding the whole company in their head and more of it doing the work they actually want to do. Oakvale backed that at the stage most funds call too early,” said Rivar Maharaj, Tennsa’s founder.
Oakvale Invest has invested over ZAR1 million (US$61,000) in the venture, making it their first investment.
“We built Oakvale Invest to back AI companies on the African continent where capital is hardest to find. Tennsa is exactly what we are looking for – a young African founder, a product built for this market rather than imported into it, and the pace to get it in front of businesses fast. This is the first of many,” said Herman Ekdahl of Oakvale Invest.
