A 24-year-old Swedish-South African entrepreneur has created an artificial intelligence platform designed to make South Africa's tender system more transparent and competitive, arguing that broader visibility of tender opportunities could help prevent corruption by ensuring the participation of more legitimate bidders.
Lars Gumede, founder of Excel Technologies, launched NowNow in January 2025 as an AI assistant for South African business owners. Its key feature, Tender Finder, automates the process of locating and applying for government tenders – a process that Gumede describes as highly flawed.
“If you are trying to find tenders now, you use the government's e-tenders website, or you monitor different sites for tenders that are not on the e-tenders website,” Gumede said. “It's a terrible experience. Thousands of new tenders are being published every week. The website is not very good. There is no good way to find tenders.”
He said one of the main problems with the system is that many tenders go under the radar – sometimes deliberately – giving insiders an advantage. Gumede said, “If we can attract as many people to honestly participate as possible to watch, then hopefully more people will bid and the system will become more competitive.” “Hopefully we can tackle corruption this way.”
Tender Finder uses AI to screen tender invitations and present relevant opportunities based on the company's work area. For example, a civil engineering firm specializing in road construction can quickly find tenders for road and infrastructure projects. Gumede said the plan is to expand the capabilities of the tool so that it can automatically complete and submit tender application forms on behalf of companies.
NowNow's comprehensive tool suite includes a receipt manager, invoice maker, load-shedding tracker, email summaries, and a compliance center. Features in development include automated South African Revenue Service filing, cyber security monitoring and an AI-powered social media manager.
Gumede was born in Halmstad, Sweden, before his family moved to the United Kingdom and then South Africa. He attended St. John's College in Johannesburg, before studying actuarial science at the University of Cape Town, where he also took computer science electives and taught himself programming before his first year of university. He graduated with a Bachelor of Business Science in Actuarial Science in 2024 and launched Accel Technologies in January 2025.