Ghent based AI startup Tekst has secured €11.5 million in Series A funding as it looks to solve one of the biggest obstacles facing enterprise AI adoption: understanding how businesses actually operate behind the scenes. The funding round was led by US venture capital firm Elephant and marks a major step in Tekst’s ambition to automate complex back office operations at scale.
Tackling the Missing Layer in Enterprise AI
Businesses across industries are investing heavily in artificial intelligence, yet many still struggle to achieve meaningful returns from deployment. According to Tekst, the problem is not the AI models themselves but the lack of structured process intelligence that AI systems need to operate effectively.
Most critical business workflows are not formally documented. Instead, they exist across emails, PDF files, spreadsheets, legacy software systems, and the knowledge held by employees.
Founded in 2022 by Wouter Janssen and Tiebe Parmentier, Tekst is developing technology that automatically reconstructs these hidden workflows by analysing the digital traces left behind in day to day business operations.
Mapping How Businesses Really Work
Unlike traditional process automation tools that focus on isolated tasks, Tekst aims to understand entire operational flows across the back office.
Its platform analyses emails, contracts, orders, customer interactions, and other operational data to reveal how actions trigger subsequent tasks inside organisations. This allows businesses to identify repetitive manual work and automate it more effectively.
The company says its technology can replace months of consulting and process mapping work by automatically surfacing operational patterns within weeks.
Automating Complex Back Office Operations
Tekst focuses on high volume and often highly manual workflows such as quotes, purchase orders, claims processing, and customer service operations.
In many enterprises, these processes still rely heavily on employees manually reviewing email threads, extracting information from PDFs, checking contract clauses, and transferring data between systems.
The platform integrates directly with widely used enterprise software including SAP, Salesforce, and Microsoft.
By connecting existing systems and understanding workflow context, Tekst aims to reduce repetitive administrative work while improving operational efficiency.
Growing Enterprise Adoption
The company has already attracted several major enterprise customers, including Daikin Europe, Colruyt Group, Securex, and Becton Dickinson.
These organisations are using Tekst’s platform to streamline operational workflows and improve automation across their back office functions.
The growing customer base reflects rising enterprise demand for AI systems capable of handling more than isolated chatbot style interactions.
Building AI Agents with Real Operational Context
According to CEO Wouter Janssen, the processes that truly run businesses are rarely captured in structured documentation. Instead, they exist across fragmented systems and human knowledge.
Tekst believes this hidden operational context is what AI agents need in order to move beyond basic assistance and perform meaningful enterprise automation reliably.
The company argues that without this process intelligence layer, AI systems remain limited in their ability to drive real operational transformation.
Funding Expansion and Product Development
The newly raised funding will be used to accelerate product development and support international expansion. Tekst currently employs around 35 people and plans to double headcount by the end of the year, with hiring focused primarily on engineering and go to market functions.
Investors believe the company is addressing a foundational challenge in enterprise AI adoption.
According to Matt Tanenblatt, many companies want to deploy AI agents but lack the underlying process intelligence required for reliable automation. Tekst’s technology is designed to close that gap by showing how workflows actually operate inside organisations.
Positioning for the Next Phase of Enterprise AI
As enterprises move from experimentation toward large scale AI deployment, understanding operational context is becoming increasingly important. Tekst is positioning itself within this emerging category by building infrastructure that enables AI agents to function safely and effectively inside real business environments.
With fresh funding and growing enterprise traction, the company is aiming to become a key player in the next generation of AI driven business automation.
