Ande, an AI-native network for corporate entertainment, has officially emerged from stealth with more than $52 million in seed and Series A funding. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and included Redpoint Ventures, Duration Ventures, and Sierra Ventures, with participation from Bain Capital Ventures. The company aims to unify the fragmented booking and expense management processes that enterprises currently handle across multiple disconnected systems.
Addressing a Large and Fragmented Market
Enterprises spend an estimated $325 billion each year on entertainment, including client dinners, team outings, catering, sporting events, and gifting. Much of that spending is managed through credit cards, accounts payable systems, and consumer applications, which creates manual reconciliation burdens for finance teams. Ande positions itself as a structured solution for one of the last unmanaged categories of enterprise spend.
Automating the Entertainment Workflow
The platform uses agentic workflows to surface venue availability, book experiences, route approvals, execute contracts, and reconcile expenses automatically. Executive assistants, office managers, field marketers, go-to-market teams, and their managers collaborate in a single multiplayer workspace. Ande moves each request through approval, signing, and payment while finance and legal teams maintain visibility and control.
Use Cases Across Enterprises
Teams use Ande for offsites, client dinners, catering, sporting events, and gifting while executive assistants and field marketers manage requests in one workspace. Finance and legal teams rely on automated approvals and reconciliation to keep spending visible and compliant. This collaborative model reduces manual coordination for high-stakes events and everyday entertainment alike.
Early Traction and Customer Adoption
More than 60 enterprises already use Ande, reporting savings of 12 to 15 percent on entertainment spend. Customers include Cloudflare, Salesforce, McGraw Hill, Netskope, Navan, Sigma Computing, Monday.com, Workato, Semgrep, Checkout, and Rillet. More than $400 million in entertainment spend flows through the platform annually, signaling rapid acceptance among corporate buyers.
A Growing Venue Network
Ande also gives venues a direct channel to enterprise bookings and corporate demand that did not previously exist. The company's network includes 1,600 hospitality venue partners, featuring groups such as Altamarea Group, Che Fico, Nobu, Tao Group Hospitality, Wolfgang Puck, and many others. More than 93,000 entertainment venues are currently on the Ande network.
Executive Commentary
Lohit Sarma, CEO and co-founder of Ande, said entertainment builds culture, closes deals, and deepens relationships, yet the infrastructure to manage it remains broken on both sides of each transaction. He added that Ande is the first enterprise channel between corporate buyers and entertainment vendors. The company spent two and a half years working with venues to digitize their data and train models for enterprise-specific workflows.
Investor Confidence
Arif Janmohamed, Venture Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners and Co-Founder of Duration Ventures, called entertainment one of the biggest enterprise expense lines that is not yet well managed. He described Ande as the connective tissue and the perfect handshake between corporations and venues. Redpoint Ventures Managing Director Alex Bard said the firm's confidence in the company is rooted in Lohit Sarma's startup DNA and enterprise experience.
Ande's emergence from stealth reflects a broader push to bring artificial intelligence and automation to corporate entertainment spend. With fresh capital, early enterprise adoption, and a rapidly expanding venue network, the company is positioned to capture a substantial share of this largely unmanaged category. Its ability to create a direct channel between corporate buyers and hospitality providers could reshape how organizations plan, book, and manage entertainment.