Freehand, an enterprise AI startup developing autonomous agents for supply chain management, has successfully closed a $75 million Series B funding round. The financing was co-led by Battery Ventures and NewRoad Capital Partners, with notable participation from Nexus Venture Partners and PSP Growth. This latest capital injection brings the San Francisco-based company's total funding to $100 million, fueling its mission to automate complex back-office operations for global enterprises.
Modernizing Supply Chain Finance
For decades, global supply chains have relied on a combination of legacy software and extensive outsourced labor to manage financial operations. This traditional model is increasingly strained by modern complexities such as tariffs, geopolitical shifts, and volatile trade routes. The manual processes involved in verifying invoices and managing supplier contracts are often inefficient and prone to costly errors.
Freehand aims to replace this outdated machinery with its autonomous AI Teams that are designed to make decisions and take direct action. These agents operate within a company's existing systems to negotiate rates, enforce contracts, manage suppliers, and process payments. This shift from manual oversight to agentic automation allows enterprises to streamline their most critical financial workflows with greater precision.
From Assisting to Acting: The Agentic AI Vision
The company was founded by enterprise logistics veterans Nitin Jayakrishnan and Abhijeet Manohar, who previously co-founded the successful logistics platform Pando. Their experience revealed an industry ripe for disruption, prompting them to build a solution that leapfrogs existing technology paradigms. They envisioned a future where AI doesn't just assist human users but functions as an autonomous user itself.
At the core of Freehand's technology is its proprietary Category Context Graph, which unifies unstructured data from documents with structured enterprise data. This gives the AI agents the deep situational knowledge required to make complex decisions with a fully auditable trail. This capability distinguishes Freehand's agents from co-pilots that merely suggest actions, enabling them to execute tasks with full accountability.
Delivering Measurable ROI for Global Leaders
Freehand has already demonstrated significant traction, securing deployments with global giants like Meta, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, and Pfizer. Early customers report recovering 5-10% of spend in complex categories and shortening procure-to-pay cycles by more than 70%. These results highlight the platform's ability to deliver immediate and substantial financial returns for its enterprise clients.
Investors were drawn to the company's clear, measurable business outcomes and strong founder-market fit. Dharmesh Thakker of Battery Ventures noted that Freehand stands out by focusing on the largest shippers and delivering tangible savings. Gregoire Lehmann of NewRoad Capital Partners echoed this sentiment, emphasizing the company's potential to become a category leader in AI-native supply chain spend management.
With its new $75 million in funding, Freehand is well-positioned to accelerate its growth and expand the deployment of its autonomous AI agents. The investment underscores rising confidence in AI's ability to solve mission-critical enterprise challenges and drive measurable productivity gains. As global supply chains continue to face complexity, Freehand's agentic approach represents a significant step toward a more automated and efficient future.