Highsail, the startup bringing AI from the office to the frontline of field operations, today announced its launch from stealth and pre-seed funding by Entourage, the venture studio and fund founded by Pieterjan Bouten (Showpad co-founder and former CEO).
Field workers speak their updates in any language through the mobile app, and then Highsail’s AI instantly turns these voice notes into structured reports. As a result, it updates ERP systems and triggers follow-up actions automatically, so what used to take hours of post-job administration now happens in real-time, right in the field.
Co-founded by Jonas Maeyens (former founder at Cronos Group) and Lance De Waele (former founding engineer at Tekst), Highsail is on a mission to bring AI-powered efficiency to service professionals in the field. While AI is reshaping enterprises and boosting office productivity, Highsail now brings that same power to the real economy.
Jonas Maeyens, co-founder and CEO, said: “We believe frictionless data capture is the foundation for transforming field service efficiency. Our customers see immediate ROI – better data quality translates into faster job completion, reducing administrative overhead by over 70% and directly improving their margins and customer satisfaction.”
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Highsail eliminates the loss of information and context between the field and the office. Every update, measurement, and observation is instantly available across the organization, and every piece of information is at your fingertips in seconds: it’s like carrying the back office in your pocket.
Customers, including Climagroup, Elneo, and Firma Beel, are already seeing a measurable impact across industrial maintenance, field service, and inspections, with global field service companies now onboarding.
Backed by the funding, the team will continue product development from its base in Ghent while expanding rapidly, with open roles across engineering, product management, and marketing.
Why Highsail Matters:
Highsail is building for the heartbeat of the economy – the people who keep buildings running, machines working, and working environments safe.
Field operations worldwide face a perfect storm: the market is rising (12-15% YoY), and the skilled workforce has never been harder to find. Yet teams lose hours every day rewriting job notes, chasing missing information, and manually updating clunky tools and checklists that were supposed to make their lives easier.
While many white-collar workers are reaping the benefits of AI and increased automation, field service professionals are left behind, stuck with manual paperwork, cumbersome checklists, siloed systems, and clunky tools.
The burden keeps growing, and there is no way to hire your way out of this.
Recognizing this urgency, Highsail has a bold vision: to become the intelligence layer for field operations. Instead of living in dashboards or chatbots, the next wave of AI integrates directly into daily work, seamlessly removing friction from the frontline to the back office.
Supporting Quotes:
Jonas Maeyens, co-founder & CEO of Highsail, said: “We’ve spent months riding along with our customers to see how they really work – from compressor rooms to rooftops – and truly understand their challenges. When technicians ask to keep using Highsail after just 15 minutes of testing, you know you’re solving a real problem. That is our North Star.”
Lance De Waele, co-founder and CTO, adds: “Delivering clean, frictionless products instead of clumsy legacy tools feels very rewarding. With the capabilities of current AI, Highsail can improve the quality, speed, and enjoyment of field administration tenfold. We’re embedding AI directly into the flow of field work – and that’s where the magic happens.”
CEO of Elneo, Jonathan Bouhy, said, “Highsail just works. Our technicians don’t need to think about AI or change their habits – it fits naturally into their flow and Highsail takes care of the rest.”
Stijn Cools, COO at Climagroup, added: “In a sector like HVAC where the talent gap is growing, tools like Highsail help us stay competitive. Both our technicians and back office benefit, and in the end we deliver better service without overloading our teams – and that matters when every minute counts.”
Pieterjan Bouten, founder of Entourage, says: “Highsail is the kind of practical AI we love to back: embedded, and ROI-driven. They’re not chasing AI hype – they are solving a massive pain point for an industry that has been underserved, with technology that actually works in the real world.”
