Opnova is a company that is transforming IT, security, and compliance operations with an agentic AI solution that takes the “Rework Out of Work.” Pulse 2.0 interviewed Opnova co-founder and CEO Sinan Eren to learn more about the company.
Sinan Eren’s Background
What is Sinan Eren’s background? Eren said:
“I have been part of the cybersecurity ecosystem for over 20 years, selling to both large enterprise and SME customers through MSP, reseller, and system integration partners. I have worked closely with IT business leaders to mitigate risks, reduce costs, increase productivity with enablement, and streamline operations. Opnova is my third company; my last two were both acquired.”
Formation Of Opnova
How did the idea for the company come together? Eren shared:
“As part of my career, I have spent time speaking with stakeholders across the cybersecurity industry – enterprise GRC analysts, SOC operator,s and IT service desk teams alike – and they were all telling me the same thing. While tools for SOAR (security orchestration automation and response) and IGA (identity governance and administration) had provided initial productivity gains, teams were still plagued with manual, repetitive work every day. I started exploring this automation gap further.”
“I hosted José Ferras Pereira, who has been my co-founder and CTO at two previous startups, for a visit at the end of 2023, and while we were supposed to not discuss new startup ideas, we couldn’t resist our old habits. By the time he left my house, we had plans for Opnova.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Eren reflected:
“We are still early on in our journey, but we started work on April 1, better known as April Fools’ Day. We are taking it as a good omen and positive karma, encouraging us to be foolishly optimistic and deliver on our mission to put an end to rework for knowledge workers.”
Core Products
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What are the company’s core products and features? Eren explained:
”Opnova takes the rework out of work for IT, security, and compliance teams by the use of agentic AI: models that can act independently to complete tasks rather than relying on prompts to operate. These agents can take over repetitive manual work like employee access requests, which can be up to 25% of IT service management requests.”
“Our approach is built on five core pillars:
— Adaptive Reliability: Our research focuses on creating AI systems that go beyond simply learning to continually adapt to changing enterprise environments, providing more consistently robust performance over time.
— Operational Safety: We’re innovating in the field of AI alignment, ensuring our systems not only follow enterprise guidelines and regulations but understand and adapt to each organization’s unique operational context and risk landscape.
— Collaborative Intelligence: Although AI agents can operate independently, we’re developing advanced mechanisms for models to seek professional guidance on high-risk tasks or when faced with unfamiliar situations, ensuring a seamless blend of AI efficiency and expert decision-making.
— Embedded Auditability: To ensure that enterprises can thoroughly audit and trust our AI systems’ decisions, we have invested heavily in explainable AI and UX to provide unprecedented ability to inspect, verify, and understand AI reasoning and actions at every step along the way.
— Privacy and Security by Design: In addition to our AI alignment innovations, we’re developing novel approaches to on-premises AI deployment and secure multimodal learning that keep sensitive enterprise data protected at all times.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges have Eren and the team face in building the company? Eren acknowledged:
“There are a number of challenges broadly facing IT and cybersecurity, but I’d like to focus on the intersections between AI, ITOps, security, and compliance. Some believe that the best way forward is to have AI manage everything – but that runs major risks in terms of safety as well as accountability.”
“At Opnova, we take a more collaborative approach. Our AI is designed to enhance and amplify the capabilities of professionals in enterprise IT, security, and compliance operations, not replace them. We believe the future of enterprise automation lies in this seamless collaboration, where AI augments professional expertise to achieve outcomes that surpass what either could accomplish alone.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Eren cited:
“We’re a fairly young company, but we’ve already raised $3.75 million from incredible institutional investors like Faber, ScaleX, Preface, DNX, Incubate Fund as well as a number of super angels.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Eren affirmed:
“Our approach is informed by my and my co-founders’ deep expertise in relevant spaces. As I mentioned, I’ve been in cybersecurity for over 20 years and successfully exited both my previous companies through sales. Our CTO, José, has worked with me in the past at both of these companies. Pedro Saleiro, our Chief AI Officer, has 15+ years of experience in AI, and his work has launched award-winning products, saved millions in fraud prevention, mitigated bias, and earned patents and publications at top AI conferences. Finally, Tiago Melo, our Chief Architect, has over a decade of experience in systems design and development, specializing in crafting complex, real-time solutions.”
“Furthermore, our business model is informed by the needs professionals have directly expressed to us and the realities of business. CIOs and IT leaders operate under a long list of mandates competing for attention and budget. We recognize that and genuinely empathize with these leaders. Opnova aims to help them use AI to close the gaps in their existing IT service management implementation. We are advocating for ‘better together,’ not ‘rip and replace.’”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Eren emphasized:
“We have just launched from stealth, so there are many goals ahead! We plan to use our funding to help further scale and develop our platform based on early-access results and feedback. There are a number of processes ripe for this kind of rework reduction, like employee lifecycle management (movers, joiners, leavers), application access requests/approvals, compliance reviews, and common troubleshooting service requests (password resets, porting MFA, etc.). The future is bright, and we are excited to share our solution with enterprises around the world.”
Additional Thoughts
Any other topics you would like to discuss? Eren concluded:
“Earlier, I mentioned the automation gap, and I’d like to expand on that a bit. Despite great strides in technology, many IT tasks remain nearly impossible to fully automate. We’ve discovered some key factors, including lack of APIs for specific functions or price-gating them behind higher tiers of subscriptions, but one of the biggest is a lack of complex reasoning in legacy automation solutions. Generally, the tools of the trade seem to be limited to simple decision trees which are powered by if-this-then-that style parochial sequential logical operations, meaning these solutions can’t handle more complicated tasks. This is also a driver of the high automation error rates we’re seeing.”
“Ultimately, these can only help teams gain so much productivity, leaving a gap behind where manual work and rework are still required. Opnova’s AI-native solution takes the rework out of work.”
