INVESTOR OVERVIEWAUGUST 2026 · PRE-SEED

Every company should get smarter and more effective every time it works.

Retenna watches what is happening across the business and outside it, catches important risks and opportunities early, explains what they affect, helps the right people and AI act, and checks the result so the next decision is better. It is one company-wide system for noticing, deciding, coordinating, acting and learning.

Private betaworking product and guided company rollout
23companies requested access organically in month one
US$1Mpre-seed SAFE raise

Illustrative example · Northstar Software

DetectsUsage fell while a promised fix moved seven days late.
↓
UnderstandsThe renewal, delivery promise and Q3 plan are now at risk together.
↓
Helps actGet a credible date, prepare the customer plan and keep watching whether the account recovers.
THE PROBLEMCOMPANIES OPTIMISE TASKS, NOT THE WHOLE RESULT

Companies have software for every task. No system continuously understands the whole business and improves how it operates.

Leaders still have to notice important changes, work out what they affect, make the decision, coordinate the work and check whether the business improved. More tools and more AI create more activity without closing that loop.

NoticeUnderstandDecideActCheckImprove

Retenna keeps the whole loop connected.

01

Important changes surface too late.

A late task, quiet customer, support complaint, competitor move or blocked dependency may look small alone. Their combined effect becomes clear only after the cost has grown.

02

Plans and commitments drift away from execution.

A goal still looks active while the work beneath it slips. Teams follow different decisions, deadlines lose owners and customer promises separate from delivery.

03

Business consequences stay hidden across teams.

One project delay can affect revenue, customers, another team and the board plan at once. Existing systems show the local issue, not the company-wide impact.

04

People and AI duplicate or contradict work.

Different workers investigate separate versions of the same problem, miss dependencies and make decisions without seeing what is already under way.

05

AI acts without the company system around it.

An AI may complete its task without knowing the current priority, what it may change, who else is involved, when approval is required or whether its work helped.

06

Completed tasks do not improve future decisions.

The email is sent, the ticket closes and the AI finishes. The company still may not know whether the customer recovered, the project returned to plan or the same mistake should be prevented next time.

THE PRODUCTNOTICE → UNDERSTAND → DECIDE → ACT → IMPROVE

Retenna helps the whole company notice, decide, act and learn as one.

Retenna keeps the company’s goals, decisions, commitments, work and results connected, then uses that understanding to guide what happens next.

  1. 01

    Watch the business

    Retenna follows approved internal work and outside developments, looking for material changes before someone asks the right question.

  2. 02

    Understand the effect

    It connects each change to the customers, goals, decisions, promises, projects, deadlines, risks and opportunities it affects.

  3. 03

    Support the decision

    Retenna brings forward the evidence, previous decisions, uncertainty, options and trade-offs needed to choose the next move.

  4. 04

    Coordinate people and AI

    It gives each worker a clear part of the same result, keeps active work visible and prevents duplication or conflict.

  5. 05

    Act within limits

    Retenna can recommend, prepare work for approval or carry out approved low-risk action where the connected system allows it.

  6. 06

    Check and improve

    It follows the result. Successful approaches spread, corrections change future work and failed approaches become harder to repeat.

Northstar renewal · one company situation
Goal

Keep Northstar and deliver a credible fix before renewal.

What changed

Usage down · support worsening · promised fix late.

Business effect

Renewal · delivery promise · Q3 revenue plan.

Who does what

AI assistantJoin the evidence and find conflicting promisesComplete
Delivery leadConfirm the credible fix and dateDecision needed
Account ownerReview and send the customer planPrepared

Radar & outside watch

Find material internal and external changes before they become obvious surprises.

Ask

Explain what changed, what it affects, what remains uncertain and which decision is needed.

Briefs

Deliver the priorities, unresolved work and risks each person needs to act on.

Work

Give people and AI clear responsibilities, shared goals, hand-offs and deadlines.

Actions

Prepare or carry out approved work with the right limits, review and record.

Company record

Keep decisions, corrections, actions and results so future work starts better informed.

PROGRESS & TRACTIONWORKING BETA · ORGANIC DEMAND

A working product and 23 organic company requests before an institutional round.

Retenna has moved from thesis to private beta, with early company demand and operator backing.

PRODUCT

Working private beta

Built by a solo technical founder from company sources and risk detection through coordinated work, approvals, outside research and reviewable actions.

ORGANIC DEMAND

23 company requests

Companies requested private-beta access in the first month before paid advertising, an outbound sales team or a public launch.

EARLY BACKING

US$5k invested

The first outside capital came from an experienced operator adviser who also supports commercial strategy and execution.

Next milestone: active design partners with measurable results and paid conversions.

WHY NOWAI ACTION IS SCALING FASTER THAN COMPANY CONTROL

AI is creating more work than companies can properly understand, coordinate or improve.

As AI gains access to more company systems, businesses need one layer that keeps its work aligned with company priorities and measures whether it improved the business.

US$37B

Enterprise generative-AI spend in 2025

Enterprise spending grew 3.2× in one year.

>40%

Of agentic-AI projects forecast to be cancelled by 2027

Gartner cites rising cost, unclear value and weak controls.

AI can increasingly search and act across company systems. Retenna turns that access into coordinated, measurable work.

OpenAI, Microsoft and Glean are proving the access layer. Retenna connects that access to company priorities, people, decisions and results across the whole business.

SOURCES: MENLO VENTURES · 2025 STATE OF GENERATIVE AI IN THE ENTERPRISE · GARTNER · AGENTIC AI PROJECT FORECAST, 25 JUNE 2025 · OPENAI COMPANY KNOWLEDGE · MICROSOFT WORK IQ · GLEAN PRODUCT MATERIALS

WHERE WE STARTONE HIGH-VALUE PROBLEM FIRST

Start with one expensive problem. Expand as Retenna proves its value.

Initial focus: 20–200-person B2B companies where customer promises, projects and decisions already cross several teams, systems and AI tools.

INITIAL CUSTOMER

20–200-person B2B companies

Growing companies with enough complexity for important work to fall between teams, but without the appetite for a heavyweight enterprise rollout.

Founder / CEOCOOChief of StaffOperationsCustomer leaderProduct leader

FIRST PROBLEM

One painful problem with a measurable result.

  • Customer and renewal risk
  • Project and launch delays
  • Sales promises versus delivery
  • Compliance or security follow-through
  • Outside changes affecting company work
  • People and AI repeating or contradicting work
1

Choose one expensive problem

Start where late awareness, poor coordination or weak follow-through already costs the company money or time.

2

Connect only what is needed

Use the approved apps, information and actions required for that problem — nothing broader by default.

3

Agree what success means

Define the business result Retenna should improve, not merely the task it should complete.

4

Run with clear controls

Begin with visibility or prepared work, keep sensitive decisions with people and measure the result.

5

Expand after proof

Move to an annual company subscription and add more teams, problems and approved actions as value is proven.

One company problem→Annual company subscription→More teams and problems→More approved action→Company-wide intelligence
MARKET & BUSINESS MODELANNUAL COMPANY SUBSCRIPTION

One company subscription. Expansion comes from more teams, problems and approved actions.

Retenna sells to the company rather than charging for each employee, connector or AI agent.

US$37Benterprise generative-AI spending in 2025
US$19Bspent on user-facing AI applications
≈6,700customers at an illustrative US$15k annual contract ≈ US$100M ARR

ENTERPRISE

Custom annual agreement

For company-wide use with additional security, retention, legal, procurement or implementation requirements.

  • Contract-defined requirements
  • Security and rollout review
  • Dedicated implementation support

DESIGN PARTNERS

Private-beta collaboration

Selected companies work closely with Retenna on real problems before choosing paid access.

  • Scope agreed in writing
  • Beta access and feedback expectations defined
  • Paid access discussed separately

Illustrative scale only; not public pricing.

SOURCE FOR MARKET CONTEXT: MENLO VENTURES · 2025 STATE OF GENERATIVE AI IN THE ENTERPRISE

WHY RETENNAWHY THE ADVANTAGE GROWS

Retenna covers the whole operating loop others split across separate products.

Retenna wins by solving the whole-company job incumbents only cover in pieces, entering through a faster mid-market route and learning from real company decisions and results.

CategoryWhat it does wellWhat Retenna adds
AI workspaces

Help a person or agent search company information, answer questions and use tools.

Watches across the company, coordinates work between people and AI and checks whether the business result improved.

Enterprise search and knowledge platforms

Make company information easier to find, understand and use.

Connects what was found to decisions, responsibilities, action and the result that followed.

Agent platforms

Build, run and monitor AI agents and their tasks.

Organises the wider company work around each agent and measures success at the business level.

Department-specific software

Solves one problem deeply inside sales, support, projects, compliance or another function.

Uses one company-wide system across customer, project, revenue, risk, market and AI work.

ADVANTAGES FROM THE PRODUCT DESIGN

Four reasons Retenna can win before long-term history becomes a switching advantage.

The complete loop

Retenna combines detection, impact analysis, decision support, coordinated work, controlled action and result measurement. Incumbents usually cover only parts of that loop.

Neutral across AI providers

Retenna can work with ChatGPT, Claude, custom agents and future models, keeping the company’s operating intelligence independent of one vendor.

One platform across many problems

The same system can start with customer risk or project drift, then expand into sales, compliance, outside change and people-and-AI work.

A faster mid-market route

Retenna starts with one costly problem and approved workspace connections, avoiding the heavyweight rollout that excludes many growing companies.

ADVANTAGES THAT STRENGTHEN WITH USE

Every deployment can make Retenna more useful and harder to replace.

Decision and outcome data

Retenna learns which decisions were made, why they were made, what followed and what actually worked — data a newly connected competitor does not have.

Trust and responsibility map

Owners, permissions, approvals, hand-offs and the proven strengths of each AI improve how future work is assigned and checked.

Reusable company playbooks

Successful responses become repeatable. Failed approaches, exceptions and corrections change future work across the company.

Expansion across the company

Each additional team and problem increases Retenna’s usefulness, strengthens the shared operating picture and raises the cost of replacing it.

FOUNDER & ADVISERSSOLO TECHNICAL FOUNDER

Built and grown products to millions of users.

TH

TRENT HOWES · SOLO FOUNDER

Built Retenna solo from product thesis to private beta.

Leads product, engineering, strategy, growth and partnerships.

2.3Musers of a Discord bot Trent built
120k+Discord communities installed the bot
20kusers joined Concord organically

Concord

A Discord + Patreon + Ko-fi-style platform combining community, memberships and creator payments with AI operations for content creators.

Founder-market fit

Building community and collaboration products showed how quickly decisions, ownership and important work break apart as people, systems and AI multiply.

Advisers and early backing

Finance, operations and governance: more than 30 years of senior executive and managing-director experience at Bidvest Bank and Capital Group.

Commercial and enterprise execution: founder of Capital Group, a national distributor serving retailers including Makro and Walmart; adviser and first US$5,000 investor.

THE RAISEUS$1M PRE-SEED · 18–24 MONTH PLAN

US$1M to target 100+ paying companies and US$2.4M+ ARR.

The capital funds product reliability, customer rollout, sales and security to turn early demand into repeatable revenue and expansion.

US$1M18–24 month plan · first institutional round
Product, integrations and reliability38%
Customer rollout and success25%
Sales, growth and pipeline20%
Security and enterprise readiness10%
Operating reserve7%

18–24 MONTH OPERATING PLAN

01
MONTH 6

25 design partners · first paid conversions

Identify the strongest starting problems, prove measurable results and build the first repeatable customer stories.

02
MONTH 12

50 paying companies · US$80k+ MRR · about US$1M ARR

Prove repeatable founder-led sales, annual company contracts and continued customer use.

03
MONTH 18–24

100+ paying companies · 2,000+ weekly active users · US$200k+ MRR / US$2.4M+ ARR

Reach strong next-round metrics with double-digit monthly growth, customer expansion and qualified pipeline coverage of at least three times the following quarter’s target.

25design partners
100+paying companies
2,000+weekly active users
US$200k+monthly recurring revenue
US$2.4M+annual recurring revenue
30%+customers expanding into a second problem

Internal 18–24 month operating targets.

Retenna can become the system companies rely on to see what matters, make better decisions, coordinate people and AI, act safely and improve with every result.

One company-wide intelligence layer across every person, system and AI the business uses.