Procure AI lands $13M in funding to automate business procurement tasks – News

The business of sourcing components and supplies and agreeing contractual terms might not be very exciting, but it sure is important, and that’s precisely why Procure AI Ltd.’s seed funding round is worthy of attention.

The startup today said it has raised $13 million in an investment round led by Headline, with participation from C4 Ventures, Futury Capital and a number of angel investors from the procurement industry.

Procure AI is leveraging artificial intelligence agents to try and automate enterprise’s procurement operations, and claims to be able to deliver measurable cost reductions and increased efficiency, boosting their bottom line. To do this, it has developed a “complete AI-native procurement platform” that covers every aspect of buying and selling essential supplies, as opposed to point solutions that only target isolated workloads.

Rather than replace existing procurement software systems, Procure AI’s platform simply integrates with them, gobbling up all of the data they generate to feed more than 50 agents. It has developed three kinds of AI agents – autonomous agents for executing procurement-related tasks independently, collaborative agents that assist humans in making decisions, and ambient agents that offer proactive support to human teams. According to the startup, it enables full automation across every procurement task, including sourcing, contracting, purchasing and invoice management.

It says procurement automation is needed now more than ever, because many teams are being asked to do more with increasingly limited resources. It cites research from Proxima Group, which shows that 90% of companies are struggling with problems such as limited headcount on their procurement teams, budget constraints and a skills gap. Moreover, with the imposition of so many tariffs on goods being imported into U.S., companies are also dealing with increased uncertainty regarding international trade and disruptions to their usual supply chains.

Despite these challenges, procurement remains critical for most enterprises. Research by Hackett Group indicates that external supplier costs account for between 60% and 75% of the average Fortune 500 company’s revenue, and so even modest gains in efficiency and cost reductions can translate to billions of dollars in profit.

That’s what Procure AI says it can provide, claiming substantial improvements in productivity, quality and cost savings. For instance, its Autonomous Spot-Buy and Tactical Sourcing agents are said to reduce procurement times by around 40%, while delivering savings of between 3.7% and 5.2% on each item that’s sourced, while its Quote-to-Order Intake agent enables up to 60% of requests to be performed autonomously.

Procure AI co-founder and co-Chief Executive Konstantin von Büren said enterprises can’t afford to rely on manual, people-intensive processes for their procurement operations. “Our enterprise clients are telling us they need to process three times the volume of sourcing events with flat or declining headcount,” he said. “The only way forward is through AI agents that can operate autonomously whilst maintaining the rigor and compliance that procurement demands.”

The proof is in the pudding, and Procure AI has been growing rapidly over the past 12 months, with its revenue up four-times. The startup has offices in London, Paris and Frankfurt, and customers such as the German energy supplier EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg AG and manufacturing giant Kärcher SE & Co. KG say its software has helped them achieve reductions of around 30% in processing time and savings of around 5%, amounting to savings of around €2.35 million ($2.7 million) on average.

One of the company’s biggest advantages is that customers don’t need to overhaul their existing procurement systems and start afresh, co-CEO Yves Bauer said. “Our platform sits on top of fragmented data landscapes and makes them intelligible — enriching what’s there rather than replacing it,” he explained. “That’s why we can deliver ROI in months, not years, and why our clients see us as a true partner rather than another vendor.”

Procure AI’s next step is to expand beyond its core markets of Germany, Austria and Switzerland into the rest of Europe, especially the U.K., France, the Low Countries and Scandinavia. It’ll also focus on growing its engineering teams and expanding its agentic automations.

Headline Partner Dominic Wilhelm said existing procurement AI tools are too focused on solving isolated problems, rather than fixing the entire operation. “Procure AI addresses the fragmented data and manual processes that plague procurement operations, delivering measurable ROI across the entire workflow,” he said.

Image: Procure AI