Retail veteran Jose M. Barra takes on Advisor role at Trigo Co-founder Michael Gabay's startup Gain
Jose M. Barra has joined Gain as an Advisor, bringing experience leading large scale retail and consumer businesses at The Home Depot, Target, and Optum.
In a LinkedIn post, Gain said: “Joe’s expertise in business transformation, commercialisation, and AI enabled innovation will help advance Gain AI's mission to deliver smarter, faster decisions for retailers and consumer brands.”
Gain, a startup providing AI employees for hire, emerged from stealth last year, announcing a $12 million seed funding round led by The Garage. Other investors included BlueRed Partners and Bazan Group.
Gain, which was previously known as Velon and was launched by Michael Gabay, who co-founded and was President at autonomous stores specialist Trigo, has created an autonomous workforce layer that manages end-to-end procurement and operational workflows - from category and merchandising strategy, sourcing and negotiations to contract execution, transaction processing and exception management, all integrated with ERP, productivity, collaboration and procurement technologies.
“We’ve gained unique experience supporting customer and vendor facing agentic solutions that drive revenue, and we see Gain as a key standout in this space,” said Eyal Radler, Managing Partner at The Garage.
“Alongside its groundbreaking R&D work, Gain is disrupting the traditional SaaS pay-per-seat model with its pay-per-outcome approach to encourage early adoption. The team has a unique advantage in its unparalleled access to customers, which today is often the most significant moat. In addition, they are creating proprietary data sets that further strengthen their position and build a durable long-term edge. We’re very excited to be working with the team and look forward to ushering in our new AI workforce.”
Yishai Klein, Managing Partner at Singapore-based BlueRed Partners, said: “Gain provides a disruptive and visionary solution for tackling the complex procurement environment and processes across multiple industries and markets. They boast an extremely impressive and proven leadership team. We’re thrilled to be supporting the team from the outset, and we look forward to helping them penetrate the Asia-Pacific region.”
“For large and complex energy organisations like ours, the ability to optimise long-tail spend represents a significant opportunity to reduce costs across a wide range of procurement activities,” commented Netta Benari, Head of Business Development & Innovation at Bazan Group.“Gain has identified a compelling use case for AI in procurement and demonstrated the technical expertise to deliver it. As both a partner in this pilot and a strategic investor, we look forward to deepening our collaboration with Gain on multiple fronts.”
Israeli brewer, Tempo Beer Industries, is another company piloting the technology.
Tempo’s CEO Daniel Beer saud: “We have been at the forefront in automation and robotics for years, driving innovation across industries and operations. Joining forces with Gain to pioneer the adoption of AI employees in procurement is a natural next step in leading the next wave of change. The concept of an ‘AI employee’ managing the entire process from start to finish is particularly well-suited to our needs. We are undergoing testing with Natalie and Bob, and it’s fascinating to see how AI employees become part of the team.”
Gabay commented: “After a decade working with leading grocers and CPGs, I saw the big challenges in sourcing and procurement. Basic automation can’t handle the uncertainty and complexity of this field, so we built a team with deep expertise in AI, Big Data, procurement, and cybersecurity to create AI employees that outperform even 20-year veterans.”
“Our AI employees don’t replace jobs - they support teams by tackling work that otherwise goes undone and delivering real value. Pilot feedback has been very strong, and we’re excited to expand deployments.”
The seed investment will support the next phase of R&D efforts, including the launch of Gain’s next upcoming AI employees, and expansion of the product teams, as well as business growth across the United States and Europe.
2026 RTIH Innovation Awards
AI will be a key focus area at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards.
The awards are now open for entries and celebrate global retail technology innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.
Our winners will be revealed at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards Ceremony, taking place at The HAC in Central London on Wednesday, 4th November.
Check out our 2025 winners here.
Our 2025 hall of fame entrants were revealed during a sold out event which took place at The HAC on 16th October and consisted of a drinks reception, three course meal, and awards ceremony presided over by award winning comedian, actress and writer Tiff Stevenson.
In his welcome speech, Scott Thompson, Founder and Editor, RTIH, said: “This is the awards’ fifth year as a physical event. We started off with just 30 people at the South Place Hotel not far from here, then moved to London Bridge Hotel, then The Barbican, and last year RIBA’s HQ in the West End.”
“But I’m conscious of the fact that, to quote the legend that is Taylor Swift, You’re only as hot as your last hit, baby. So, this year we’ve moved to our biggest venue yet, and also pulled in our largest number of entries to date and broken attendance records.”
He added: “This year’s submissions have without doubt been our best yet. To quote one of the judges: The examples of innovative developments across both traditional and digital retail spaces were truly remarkable.”
Congratulations to our winners, and a big thank you to our sponsors, judging panel, the legend that is Tiff Stevenson, and all those who attended our 2025 gathering.
