About a year ago, Spintop Ventures invested in the AI-powered research tool Keenious. Since then, the company has doubled its client base and secured a major win: California Institute of Technology (Caltech) is now a customer.
Co-founders Anders Rapp and Frode Opdahl recently wrapped up a tour of academic conferences, with ACRL in Minneapolis as the final stop – a major gathering that attracts representatives from nearly every American university.
“The US is our largest market. And the conference season is an invaluable opportunity to meet the right people and establish contacts that we harvest during the year. It is also a good way to meet many of our existing customers. And this year we were thrilled that existing customers could in fact act as ambassadors for us. That was a real highlight.”
Since Spintop Ventures invested in Keenious they have focused on developing a strategy to up-scale and also continuing developing the product.
“We don’t aim to replace academic work, we want to support it. We chose not to add generative AI early, because our users had ethical concerns. Keenious is not just a search tool, but a learning tool. That’s why our philosophy is that Keenious won’t give you the answer, but will help you find it yourself, “ says Frode Opdahl. “We are preparing to launch our next version that will help users to better understand the research you find. Developing our product is an ongoing process. We work closely with the universities to make sure this is within ethical guidelines.”
The team has grown during the year and they have also reorganized their sales process. The result is a doubled client base with the prestigious university Caltech as a customer.
“An insight for us is to build on the unique elements we have as a startup, ” says Anders Rapp. “It has been a success for us to be humble and say “Hey, we’re just a small team, can you give us some feedback?”, rather than acting like we are bigger than we are. It has built strong relationships and goodwill.”
Keenious has developed both their sales process and customer relations during the year.
“We have had a very ad hoc approach to sales and with the support from Helen Agering, who is an expert in sales, we have been able to build a more structured and scalable sales organization. This has been a real milestone and challenging at times but really useful.”
Anders Rapp and Frode Opdahl describe how Keenious matured as a company during the year, working with a proper company board and being challenged and pushed to focus on strategy.
“It felt uncomfortable to be pushed, but we wouldn’t have done it ourselves. It feels like working as a team with Spintop Ventures, they are always on our side. We can be honest with each other and talk about challenges.”
About Keenious:
Keenious is an AI-powered academic research tool that enhances the research process by helping users discover relevant sources and understand how to use them effectively. It was founded in Norway by students Frode Opdahl and Anders Rapp, who personally experienced the challenge of navigating academic literature while writing their own papers. What started as a local solution has quickly grown into a globally relevant platform for higher education.