Sean Blanchfield, Dr Tilman Schaefer, Dorothy Creaven and Michael Cordner. Image: Tim Walsh
Jentic is a communication middleware layer for AI agents, enabling developers and organisations to hook their AI agents up to other systems.
Dublin-based AI start-up Jentic has announced it raised €4m in a pre-seed funding round led by Elkstone, an Irish investment firm specialising in private markets. There was additional participation from Sure Valley Ventures, TechOperators and Shuttle, as well as a number of angel investors.
Founded in 2024 by Sean Blanchfield, Dorothy Creaven, Michael Cordner and Dr Tilman Schaefer, Jentic aims to unite the expanding AI agent ecosystem by enabling developers and companies to connect their AI agents to other systems, for the purpose of monitoring and managing large-scale AI deployments.
An AI agent is a software program that uses AI to plan how to accomplish goals and tasks, and then performs the steps in that plan by connecting to other software systems.
Jentic’s team includes a number of veteran tech entrepreneurs, for example, CEO Blanchfield, who co-founded PageFair and DemonWare; COO Creaven, who is the former managing director at Rent The Runway and co-founder of Element Wave; Cordner, who is a co-founder of Mindconnex; and Schaefer, also a founding team member at DemonWare.
“We’re building critical infrastructure to enable developers to easily and securely hook their AI systems up to the world’s APIs,” said Blanchfield. “This is the future of automation and it needs a new kind of integration layer to manage the unique complexity, reliability and security issues that arise when AI becomes highly connected.
“We have a strong history of building category-leading middleware and this funding will allow us to quickly expand our world-class team, match the tremendous pace of AI development, and deliver a platform that empowers developers and organisations to deploy sophisticated AI with confidence.”
Niall McEvoy, the head of venture at Elkstone, also welcomed the news of the investment, stating: “We are committed to backing ground-breaking start-ups capable of transforming industries. Jentic’s clear vision to establish a universal AI integration layer aligns perfectly with our mission to drive technological innovation.
“Backing experienced serial founders with a clear global market opportunity underpins why Elkstone is leading this funding round, and we are enthusiastic to support Jentic’s growth.”
Elkstone also funded a number of investment rounds throughout 2024, for example healthcare management platform Wellola and gaming technology start-up Jamango.
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