A start-up founded by two University of Southampton students has raised £250,000 in investment to support the development of AI tools for the tendering process.
Samuel Aaron, 22, and Jamie Horsnell, 21, launched mytender.io in September 2023. The platform uses artificial intelligence to support bid writing for companies in the construction and facilities management sectors.
The investment, led by Fuel Ventures, is the largest to date for a student-founded start-up at the university.
The company currently serves over 20 clients and has a small team including two interns, a salesperson, and one full-time employee.
The idea for mytender.io emerged after the founders participated in a university-organised Small Business Speed Launch weekend and began offering AI automation services to businesses.
Their early outreach led to a conversation with a facilities management director who was spending significant time on tender responses and was interested in automating the process.
Following further research into the tendering space, they developed the concept that became mytender.io.
Both founders plan to focus on the company full time after graduation and are exploring further growth, including potential overseas expansion and future seed funding.
Their company is part of a growing trend in student entrepreneurship. Since 2014, 38,000 student and staff start-ups have been launched with support from UK universities. In 2022–23 alone, over 4,300 new ventures were registered, employing more than 64,000 people.
