Norwegian AI startup Jenz has raised €540,000 in pre-seed funding from Antler and Ada Ventures. The company has also received a NOK 1 million (€92,000) startup grant from Innovation Norway.
Founded by Remi Bjørnestad (CEO), Jo Schou Sandåker (CTO) and Natnael Belete Seifo (CCO), Jenz is developing an AI-powered platform designed to help retailers automate operational tasks and make better use of their business data.
Retailers typically manage information across multiple systems, including online stores, point-of-sale platforms, inventory management, accounting and marketing tools. Jenz aims to address this fragmentation by bringing data from these systems into a single structured layer that can be accessed and processed by its AI agent.
The platform enables retailers to analyse sales and inventory data, forecast demand, evaluate pricing and marketing strategies, and automate routine tasks. By combining information from different systems, the AI agent can also monitor operations, identify issues requiring attention and notify relevant team members when decisions are needed.
Most retailers we talk to want to use AI, but don't know where and how to start. Many have tried generic AI tools and run into the same problems: they start from scratch every time and can't handle the amount of data a store actually has. When AI is making decisions that cost real money, you have to make sure it acts on real and trusted data. That's why we built the Jenz agent,
said Remi Bjørnestad, co-founder and CEO of Jenz.
Jenz began onboarding pilot customers in late August, working with both online retailers and businesses operating multiple physical stores. During the pilot period, customers have assigned the platform more than 3,000 tasks across over 20 back-office systems.
According to the company, some pilot customers reported saving up to 100 hours of work in their first month, while one retailer recorded a 31 per cent increase in team capacity after implementing the platform.
The company emerged from the Norway AI Hackathon, organised by Ada Ventures and Startuplab in Mandal, where it won the competition in June. Ada Ventures subsequently became Jenz's first investor. The team later relocated from Kristiansand to Oslo and joined Antler's residency programme.
The company plans to expand beyond the Nordic region, with a UK launch expected within the next nine months.