Relefant as an idea was born some years back, out of the frustration of finding information in a large company; I was hired as an external consultant to head a big project in a bank. The project was very complicated and it involved building a concept and implementing it to all branch offices. To complete the project successfully, I needed a lot of in-depth information about processes, systems, dependencies, and talking to people of all levels and departments. Needless to say, there wasn’t a repository of information that I could miraculously tap into and get all the information I needed. Far from it, there were multiple information and document storage systems and applications (hundreds). All information fragmented. So, I spent the first months emailing, skyping and meeting with people to see if they knew where to locate information that was needed.
…there needed to be a better way. A new tool was needed, one that showed how people, documents, projects, systems and basically all kinds of information was connected
Even after almost 2 years, as the project approached competition, we were still discovering new and relevant information that we already needed months earlier! What’s worse, is that there were even similar projects going on in different departments that didn’t know of the other projects. Terrible and costly inefficiency!
I knew that there needed to be a better way. A new tool was needed. One that showed how people, documents, projects, systems and basically all kinds of information was connected to one another. It also needed to be easy to use, searchable, navigable and it needed to be visual. I didn’t want the solution to be just for managers or just for HR or just for BI or data scientists – I wanted a tool that any employee would feel comfortable using daily.
The idea brewed until late 2017, when an airline posted that they were looking for a solution to their information distribution and communication problems with their crew-members world-wide. I made a demo and pitched the Relefant concept as a solution in early 2018 (I didn’t get that deal, I was just way too early, but we’re now revisiting it and other airline cases too). After some market research, I understood that there were multiple problems with finding and distribution of information in large companies. Not only the banks and airlines, but all major companies had very similar and very costly problems. AND there was no solution in the market.
I decided to focus on Relefant and shortly in June 2018, Barnabas, who is our CTO and co-founder, found me and my Relefant idea. Barnabas had been working with Enterprise Search for over 10 years and had recently completed his PhD on semantic technologies, ontologies & linked data publishing. Everything just clicked, the perfect match to create Relefant. 3 months later, we had a growing team of 7 and just a month later were finalizing the solution MVP and had partnered with technology companies to sell and deliver our solution. So very exciting to be part of this journey and we are just getting started.
-Marko-
Founder at Relefant
Relefant was established in Estonia 8/2018. We’re a strong and tight team of experienced technology and business professionals. We work remotely across Europe and we can help your company wherever it is located.
Relefant partners with leading integration platform providers, data and cyber-security providers, cloud storage and knowledge-graph providers to deliver quick and reliable integrations and deployments to companies.
Well, for starters we think that elephants are just interesting for many reasons, including because of their intelligence and social behaviour. The saying goes “an Elephant never forgets”, a good memory is vital during the dry season, when herds walk vast distances to watering holes they’ve visited in the past. We feel that much like elephants’ great memory, our solution will help your employees “remember” information better.
Unfortunately, elephants are also very endangered animals, which is why Relefant will donate a portion of profits to elephant conservation every year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant
https://greenglobaltravel.com/facts-about-elephants-world-elephant-day/
Curious entrepreneur & multitasker. Started multiple startups since 2005. Loves animals, coffee and travel. Passionate about finding and building solutions to difficult problems.
Experienced problems solver. Since early 2000s working in demanding IT roles. PhD research on semantic technologies, ontologies & linked data publishing.
International business development Executive with 10 years of success in B2B sales across multiple international markets. Loves coffee and travel.