Supply chain AI startup Freehand announces $75 million seed round as it works with Meta and Dunkin’
Freehand, a startup whose AI agents manage supply chain spend for enterprises, has announced $75 million in funding co-led by Battery Ventures and NewRoad Capital Partners, with participation from former U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker’s venture capital PSP Growth, Nexus Venture Partners and others.
This follows Freehand’s recent emergence from stealth with global deployments at Meta, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Dunkin' and Cardinal Health.
"Freehand marks one of the first full scale agentic deployments at Unilever and is an early anchor in the shift from software that assists to software that runs our supply chain," says Matt Algar, Global VP of Supply Chain at Unilever.
"Enterprises spend $16 billion a year on supply chain software and another $348 billion hiring people to do what this software cannot," says Nitin Jayakrishnan, Co-founder and CEO at Freehand, who previously built and sold Pando, an enterprise SaaS platform for logistics.. "We built Freehand to close that gap - with AI agents that decide, act and take accountability for outcomes. This is the beginning of true autonomy in the enterprise."
"The very nature of work is changing, with AI," adds Abhijeet Manohar, Co-founder at Freehand. "Shifting from building software for the user to building software that is the user meant we could drive far deeper transformation for our customers. The difference between an agent that acts and a chatbot that suggests is context."
Freehand's central IP is its Category Context Graph, which captures every decision, transaction and exception across a spend category. According to the company, by unifying the unstructured data buried in documents and communication channels with the structured data in enterprise systems, it gives the agents the situational knowledge of a tenured supply chain expert, along with an audit trail explaining every decision.
"In Freehand we found an applied-AI company with a vertical wedge and tremendous customer love, proven at some of the world's largest companies where early signs of expansion were playing out," says Dharmesh Thakker, General Partner at Battery Ventures, who is joining Freehand's board. "Unlike co-pilots that simply answer questions, Freehand's Agents have enterprise context, make decisions, and take actions - this agency unlocks millions in savings for enterprises."
"What stood out to us about Freehand wasn't just the technology, but the measurable business outcomes customers were achieving," says Gregoire Lehmann, Partner at NewRoad Capital Partners. "Freehand is delivering immediate ROI by helping enterprises reduce overpayments and operating costs, improve audit accuracy, and automate highly manual supply chain finance workflows. We believe the company is well positioned to become the category leader in AI native supply chain spend management, and we're excited to leverage NewRoad's deep network of enterprises to help expand the company's enterprise footprint."
“America’s industrial competitiveness relies on how effectively our largest companies operate," says Penny Pritzker. "Freehand is one of a few companies converting frontier AI into measurable productivity gains across enterprise supply chains, with rigor, scale and accountability.”
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.
