High Alpha launches startup that helps marketing teams coordinate work
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Indianapolis-based venture studio High Alpha on Wednesday announced the public launch of its latest startup, Tenon Software Inc., which offers a platform for marketing teams at large organizations.
The company, which has been operating in stealth mode since December, currently has seven employees, with five based in the Indianapolis area.
Tenon’s cofounders, both based in the Indianapolis area, are Ben Person and Ben Ivers. Person serves as Tenon’s CEO, while Ivers is chief product officer.
Tenon is designed to make it easier for marketing teams at large organizations to work together on planning and executing marketing campaigns. As one example, Person said, planning an event could involve everything from booking a venue and ordering refreshments to lining up speakers and sending invitations. And the planning process becomes much more complex at an enterprise-scale organization, which might have a marketing department made up of several hundred people.
“Just think about coordination among that many people just for the marketing function,” Person said.
Before Tenon, Person worked as chief marketing officer at Massachusetts-based software company Nuvolo. Ivers worked in solutions consulting for marketing software company Terminus, which is based in Atlanta and has a significant Indianapolis presence.
Tenon is built to work on ServiceNow, a technology platform that helps large companies, universities and governments digitize and manage their workflows. Delta Air Lines, for instance, used ServiceNow’s platform in the early days of the pandemic to quickly launch a COVID-19 employee portal for tasks such as answering employees’ questions and assessing the company’s contact-tracing efforts.
Integrating with ServiceNow is a key advantage for Tenon, Person said, because ServiceNow is an established company that until now had not had a marketing-specific offering for customers.
Established in 2004 by New Castle native and Indiana University graduate Fred Luddy, ServiceNow has 7,700 customers and says about 85% of all Fortune 500 companies use its platform. ServiceNow reported $6.89 billion in subscription revenue in 2022.
“Any big company you’ve ever looked at is already using ServiceNow,” Person said.
Customers who are already paying for access to ServiceNow can choose to sign up with Tenon, paying an additional fee to use its marketing-specific platform. In doing so, those customers can also connect their marketing teams with human resources, legal, customer service and other departments that are already using ServiceNow.
High Alpha and ServiceNow’s venture investment arm, ServiceNowVentures, provided the capital to launch Tenon. Person declined to reveal the amount of the investment.
“With Tenon, we’re doubling down on our commitment to delivering productivity and innovation across the entire enterprise, including accelerating results across the marketing department,” ServiceNow executive John Ball said in a written statement. Ball is a senior vice president and general manager of customer and industry workflows at ServiceNow.
Tenon’s name refers to a carpentry technique, the mortise and tenon joint, which is a means of creating a strong connection between two pieces of wood.