Companies, particularly in the Nordic industrial and manufacturing sectors, are grappling with fragmented manual processes across key business functions such as procurement, supply chain management, compliance, and inventory management. Kovant addresses this problem by providing a platform that allows teams of autonomous AI agents to manage entire business functions end-to-end.
To launch globally and expand in regions including Switzerland and the Benelux countries, Kovant has raised €1.5 million in pre-seed funding to officially launch around the world. The round was led by J12 Ventures, with participation from Ampli, Green Ventures, and several prominent angel investors including Sarah Öhrvall and Emmanuel Martin-Chave.
Ali Sarrafi, CEO and co-founder of Kovant, said: TFN“As of the latest funding round, Kovant was valued at €10 million.”
AI agents that handle complete business functions
The company was founded by executives from Spotify, Bosch, Meta, Amazon, and Google and is led by CEO Ali Sarrafi. He previously ran AI programs at Spotify and helped scale AI companies used by Ericsson, H&M, SAS, and SEB.
“There’s a notion that big companies can’t deliver real value from AI unless they undertake large-scale transformation projects. But that’s not true. Too often, AI is used in a way that removes the human element from work. We’ve reversed that. We’re pioneering a system that handles execution and allows people to focus on the things that actually require human judgment. What’s important to us is the actual bottom-line impact, not adding more agents or running endless POCs. It’s not something that can be achieved in a few weeks,” Salafi says. For months. ”
Kovant’s platform is differentiated by a specialized “agent” architecture that leverages small language models (SLMs) to reduce errors and illusions common in large-scale generalist AI models. Each AI agent operates within strict guardrails to ensure accuracy, compliance, auditability, and security.
Unlike Salesforce or ERP systems, Kovant agents perform all functions autonomously, including procurement, supply chain, compliance, and customer success. Kovant’s fully autonomous agent team stands out for its speed, scalability, and enterprise governance. The platform is ISO certified, easily integrates with existing enterprise systems, and can be deployed within weeks instead of months.
“While many existing solutions focus on simple automation or incremental improvement, we are focused on solving the core challenge of scalability. Our technology significantly reduces the need for bespoke development of AI agents and custom automation tools. Kovant enables enterprises to deploy teams of autonomous agents that can run end-to-end operations under human supervision,” Salafi added.
Unlike systems where AI is locked within a specific SaaS product, Kovant allows organizations to coordinate multiple teams of agents across the entire value chain, from procurement and manufacturing to sales and delivery. Instead of building a custom solution, companies define job descriptions and team missions as blueprints, and Kovant agents execute the work. ”
What about diversity?
Regarding diversity, Salafi said, “Our initial team is comprised of nine different nationalities, and 30% of the team is women. Our talent brings experience from scaling up major technologies such as Spotify, Meta, Amazon, Google, OpenAI, and established enterprise environments such as Bosch. We also have colleagues with backgrounds in medical technology and research, giving us a particularly diverse combination of perspectives and expertise.”
What’s next?
With recently secured funding, Covant intends to expand its global footprint beyond Northern Europe, including Switzerland and the Benelux region. The company aims to demonstrate measurable P&L improvements and lead the transition to agent-first enterprise operations without the need for long-term transformation projects.
“Over the next three years, our goal is for Kovant to become the leading agent AI operating system for large enterprises in Europe and North America, and to expand globally within five years. Our goal is to help our customers run up to 90% of their middle-office operations on agent stacks under human supervision, increasing their efficiency by up to 100x and significantly increasing their competitiveness in the market.”
“Kovant is one of the first teams we’ve found to change this landscape and find a reliable path to real, scalable impact on enterprise operations,” said Emmett King, founding partner of J12. “We have tremendous experience building data infrastructure and transforming enterprises with AI, and we are moving forward with unparalleled speed and precision, already shaping the way enterprises operate and derive tremendous value from AI.”
