Sold one year after the foundation: Tendara founder is already building the second startup

Tendra founder Julian Shergill talks about Learnings, network power and his path from the internship to the asset hall to Altura.

Julian Shergill's way to the startup world started during his studies. In St. Gallen he becomes part of the start of Summit, one of the largest European founding conferences – and soon its leader. “I spent more time at start than at the university,” he says in retrospect.

But that paid off. He learned a lot in time, he says. “You don't know anything than a student: How do I write people? What are there for tools? How do I find email addresses or do Figma Designs?”

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Even more valuable than the organizational skills he learned through start is the network that he built up during the time.

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So he also secured his first internship. An important, first career step for him. “Start is supported a lot by alumni, for example by Adrian Locher from Merantix or Andreas Goeldi from B2venture.”

Pascal Rohé

Network effect from Start Summit

After his internship at Merantix, Shergill went to Argentina for his semester abroad. And then to the HR and Performance Tech Startup Lapsome, also via contacts from Start Summit.

“It was actually an internship with the aim of starting full time afterwards. But then Lapsoma made a hiring stop and also some layoffs,” said the Tendara founder.

Instead of a permanent position, Lapsomes only offered him an extension of his internship. But after nine months he didn't want to continue working for internship content.

Linus Petit for Lapsome

Instead of looking for a new job, the then 20-year-old decides for the direct leap into self-employment: “I thought: Why not now? Founder is not that you are preparing, but that you do things that you don't know if you can and learn them on the way.”

The fear of failing is only greater the longer you don't try it, says Shergill.

From the startup intern to the founder

Together with his co-founder, which he met over acquaintances and then happens to meet again in the Antler program, Shergill Tendara founded. The idea: AI-based solutions for public tenders.

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“At that time I only had money in the account for a month or two.

This resulted in a certain pressure situation to win quickly paying customers. “Pressure helps, otherwise you will be comfortable,” says Shergill.

They quickly win pilot customers, even without a finished product, he says. Among other things, Langdock and Perbility.

Market size underestimated

But soon it turns out that the market is not as large as the two initially valued. They speak to large corporations such as Mercedes or telecommunications giants, but the complexity of the tender system is higher than expected.

“The market looks huge from the outside, but it is not a real internal market in the EU,” says Shergill. Companies would only take part in national tenders. “Maybe we would have the market
have to validate more before we built. Even if we won the first paying customers without a line of code, ”he says afterwards.

A central learning for Shergill was also that not every inefficient industry is suitable for a scalable SaaS model.

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“With Tendara we can make the application process more efficient for companies, but we cannot increase the probability of winning in public tenders-and if I cannot do this, the business impact is limited.”

Asset sale just one year after the foundation

Instead of further developing the product, the team decides early on for a strategic asset sale. Altura, a Dutch provider in the field of public procurement, took over Tendara's customers and technology in mid -July 2025. Around a year after the foundation.

The company remains. Shergill and his co-founder use them for their next attempt. “We hardly touched the financing,” he explains. Accordingly, the two founders can restart directly and do not have to worry about start -up financing.

They deliberately did not want to join Altura. “It is our ambition to build a very fast growing startup”. And you have not seen this chance in the public tenders market.

More opportunities in America?

Shergill and his co -founder remain in pairs, the name Tendara remains and the focus on AI too. But they go to a new industry: this time in the HR area. No more is known at this time.

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At the same time, the two are considering a move to San Francisco. “In Germany there is a certain basic skepticism towards AI and regulations such as the EU AI Act, the purchase processes are delayed significantly.
Things are simply tried out in the USA. “