Two childhood friends have now raised $1 million for their Manchester-based AI startup BidScript.

Henry Brogan and Tyler McCarthy launched the AI tender management business while still at university to address a fundamental flaw in the bidding of public and private contracts.

Hundreds of billions of pounds of public and private contracts are awarded each year, yet most businesses are still completing tenders manually, using highly time-consuming spreadsheets and shared drives. BidScript helps businesses find, qualify, manage, write and submit bids.

The firm – which has a focus on construction and engineering, IT and education – has raised $800,000 in its latest funding round, bringing the total pre-seed funding received to date to over $1m.