For immediate release · Oslo, October 26st 2026
- Jenz is building the first agentic back office system for retailers: AI agents that handle the day-to-day work behind selling online and in store.
- Antler invested after the founders went through its residency in Oslo. Ada Ventures, Jenz's first investor, invested after the founders won its AI hackathon in June.
- Jenz is building for global scale from day one. The product is becoming fully self-serve, and the team is already testing demand outside the Nordics.
OSLO, Norway, 21 October 2026. Jenz has launched its agentic back office for retail and e-commerce: a single data layer that connects every back office system a retailer uses, and a specialised AI agent that does the work that eats up a retail team's week.
Every retailer is sitting on a gold mine
Retailers hold years of valuable data: what sold, when and at what price, what sat on the shelf, and which campaigns brought customers in. It is exactly what AI needs to forecast demand, make decisions and get work done. Until now, that data has been locked away in separate systems for the online store, checkout, stock, accounting and marketing, and an AI can't act on data it can't see.
Jenz unlocks it. It pulls the data from every back office system into one layer, connected and structured so an AI can understand what it means and act on it. On top of that layer sits an agent trained for retail work. With the full picture in one place, it can forecast demand, test a campaign or pricing strategy before any money is spent, keep track of what has worked and what hasn't, and pull up and analyse whatever the team needs in seconds.
Teams hand it work in Slack, Microsoft Teams, iMessage, whatsapp or email, the way they would brief a colleague: weekly reporting, reorders, catalogue and price updates from supplier lists, invoices for the books, ad reporting, content and first-line replies to customers. The agent watches the connected systems around the clock, and anything that spends money or reaches a customer waits for a person to approve it.
"Most retailers we talk to want to use AI, but don't know where and how to start," said Remi Bjørnestad, co-founder and CEO of Jenz. "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."
"Most software is built to keep users inside it," said Jo Schou Sandåker, co-founder and CTO of Jenz. "We're building the opposite. Retail teams shouldn't have to dig through systems for answers, or spend their day inside a dozen different dashboards. They hand the agent a task, and it takes it from there: it does the work, watches their systems around the clock and comes back to the right person on the team if something is wrong, needs attention or needs a decision."
Lessons from the first pilots
Jenz onboarded its first pilot stores in late August, from online stores to retailers with several physical locations. Much of the pilot period has been spent working closely with each store to find where the agent creates the most value.
The clearest gains have come in work that depends on data from many systems at once. Purchasing is one example: when the agent sees sales, stock and seasonality together, it can forecast what to reorder before products sell out. For the pilot stores, the biggest change has not only been the time saved, but how quickly they can act on what the data shows.
So far pilot stores have handed over more than 3,000 tasks to the Jenz agent. "Some of our pilot stores report getting back up to 100 hours of work in their very first month," said Natnael Belete Seifo, co-founder and CCO of Jenz. "One team has reported a 31% increase in capacity after bringing Jenz in."
Backed by Antler and Ada Ventures
Jenz announced €540,000 in pre-seed funding from Antler and Ada Ventures on 21 October, alongside a NOK 1 million (€92,000) start-up grant from Innovation Norway. The founders won Ada Ventures' AI hackathon in Mandal in June as a last-minute team, and Antler invested after the team went through its residency in Oslo. The funding announcement, with quotes from both investors, is attached, and the round has been covered by Shifter, Tech.eu, Konsulteer, Imperium and EU.VC.
Availability
The Jenz agentic back office is available today for online stores and retailers. Retailers can book a demo at meetjenz.com. Jenz is built in Oslo, Norway.
What's next
The product is becoming fully self-serve, so stores can sign up and connect their systems themselves, and the team is already testing demand outside Norway. After the Nordics, the UK is next.
About Jenz
Jenz builds the agentic back office for retail and e-commerce: one data layer across a retailer's systems and a specialised AI agent that acts on it. The company was founded in 2026 by Remi Bjørnestad (CEO), Jo Schou Sandåker (CTO) and Natnael Belete Seifo (CCO), after the team won Ada Ventures' AI hackathon in Norway in June. Jenz is based in Oslo and backed by Antler, Ada Ventures and Innovation Norway. meetjenz.com
