Summary
Tendo improves economic certainty for employers and frontline employees by creating a place to collaborate around training and development goals. This is done using web-enabled technology that generates a verified, portable record of an individual’s workplace credentials, shared mutually and updated weekly.
Investment thesis
The so-called “skill gap” presents a precarious crisis for developed economies. Employers are unable to find qualified candidates to sustain their operating models, while the gradual but accelerating automation of roles questions the long-term security of frontline workers.
Tendo believes that if employees are properly accredited for their current (and historical) workplace credentials, a firmer foundation of understanding and recognition is formed. A Tendo record then serves as a platform and incentive for their continued advancement through low and medium-skill roles. In the short-term, employers will better retain talent, while future-proofing their business through increased capacity (diversity of functions and overall output).
While many forms of training and accreditation already existing for low and medium-skill roles, none see the worker as a user of lifelong learning. The future of work requires a clearer social contract between the employer, one that is bilateral and contained within portable skills accounts for individuals.
Potential refugee impact
Product: Tendo’s web app provides a lightweight way for individuals to port their workplace credentials across contexts: between employers, across borders and over language barriers. Displaced people can retrospectively claim verified credentials and communicate these with potential employers outside of a CV / resume context to make employment more porous in hiring, and secure once hired.
Engineering: Tendo has been built with a view to catering to low-cost devices with intermittent cell connectivity. As well as working over the web and on smartphone screens, we also function through feature phones using SMS communication.
Distribution: Tendo currently works with returning citizens (long-term unemployed, previously incarcerated, previously homeless) and sees refugees in a similar degree of unemployability. Our aim is to increase efforts, allowing us to reach more refugees sooner, focusing on key host cities (London, Berlin, Munich).
Management
Will Ross – Founder & CEO
Structure
Tendo is an enterprise based in London.