Procurement is becoming one of the most important areas of enterprise transformation as businesses look for ways to reduce costs, improve supplier relationships, and eliminate time-consuming purchasing processes. Traditionally dependent on spreadsheets, manual negotiations, and fragmented software, the function is increasingly being reshaped by artificial intelligence.
A new generation of founders is approaching these challenges with AI-powered platforms and services designed to make purchasing more intelligent and efficient. From autonomous procurement agents to global manufacturing networks and AI-driven cost optimization, these five founders are developing solutions that could change how businesses source products, manage vendors, and control spending.
Hala Jalwan – Co-founder and CEO of Rivio
Hala Jalwan brings 15 years of product leadership experience at Google, Meta, and Apple to her role as co-founder and CEO of Rivio. Her experience building and launching technology products helped shape her understanding of how intelligent automation can improve complex business operations. With Rivio, she is applying that expertise to procurement, a function that has historically relied on manual coordination between purchasing teams, finance departments, legal professionals, and external suppliers.
Rivio is building an AI-powered procurement platform designed to automate purchasing activities from initial requests through vendor selection, contracting, and payment. Its AI procurement agent, Sheldon, can handle tasks such as sourcing suppliers, comparing quotes, negotiating terms, managing purchase orders, and processing invoices within a company’s existing systems. The platform is designed to let procurement professionals oversee decisions and exceptions while AI agents handle much of the repetitive execution. Jalwan’s vision is to help organizations operate more efficiently without requiring procurement teams to grow at the same pace as purchasing demand.
Rajiv Ramanan – Co-founder and CPO of Spendflo
Rajiv Ramanan co-founded Spendflo alongside Siddharth Sridharan and Ajay Vardhan after recognizing how difficult it can be for businesses to manage software spending and vendor relationships. Before launching the company, Ramanan worked at Freshworks, where he helped build its partner marketplace and gained experience working with thousands of software vendors. That exposure gave him insight into the challenges organizations face when evaluating suppliers, negotiating contracts, and managing increasingly complicated technology budgets.
Spendflo has evolved from a SaaS spend management platform into an AI-native procurement system designed to automate purchasing operations. Its Flo AI workforce brings together specialized agents for procurement intake, contract management, and accounts payable. These agents can process purchase requests, track contractual obligations, identify renewal opportunities, and reconcile invoices, while human teams retain control over important approvals and decisions. Ramanan’s product vision centers on moving procurement away from software that simply organizes administrative work toward intelligent systems that can execute entire workflows.
Anthony Sardain – Founder and CEO of Cavela
Anthony Sardain founded Cavela in 2023 after experiencing the challenges of global manufacturing and product sourcing firsthand. Growing up in a family with three generations of experience in the materials trade and spending time across Southeast Asia and Latin America gave him a perspective on the relationships and complexities involved in international commerce. His academic background also includes machine learning research at McGill University, where he studied global shipping networks. Sardain saw an opportunity to combine this technical expertise with his understanding of international trade to make manufacturing more accessible to businesses.
Cavela is developing an AI-powered sourcing platform that connects brands with manufacturers around the world. Its AI agents help businesses discover suppliers, evaluate factories, request quotes, negotiate pricing, and coordinate production. The platform is designed to reduce the time and resources traditionally required to identify reliable manufacturing partners, particularly for smaller brands that lack dedicated procurement departments. By making global supplier networks more accessible, Sardain aims to help businesses manufacture products more efficiently and compete with larger organizations that have historically enjoyed stronger sourcing relationships.
Trevor McCaw – Co-founder of ProcureVenn
Trevor McCaw brings experience as a four-time founder and former medical-device CEO to ProcureVenn, where he is working to help businesses uncover opportunities hidden within their procurement spending. Having operated businesses and navigated complex purchasing environments, McCaw understands how supplier costs, inefficient contracts, and fragmented purchasing decisions can affect profitability. His background also includes experience with business consulting, giving him a perspective on how analytical frameworks can be applied to improve organizational performance.
ProcureVenn combines experienced procurement operators with AI-powered analysis to help businesses identify and capture savings opportunities. Rather than simply providing another procurement dashboard, the company works with organizations to examine spending data, contracts, supplier relationships, and purchasing categories. Its approach combines large-scale analysis with industry expertise and hands-on implementation, helping companies move from identifying potential savings to actually realizing them. McCaw’s focus is on making sophisticated procurement analysis and execution more accessible, particularly for businesses and investors looking to improve financial performance without building large internal consulting teams.
Edward Haryono – Co-founder and CEO of Saudara AI
Edward Haryono co-founded Saudara AI to address the difficulties American brands encounter when sourcing products from overseas manufacturers. Growing up in Indonesia in a family with decades of experience in retail and logistics, Haryono developed an understanding of the relationships that underpin international trade. He later spent five years at Amazon working in procurement, gaining firsthand experience with the purchasing requirements of large organizations. This combination of family business experience and corporate procurement knowledge helped shape the idea behind Saudara AI.
Saudara AI is building an AI-native sourcing broker that connects American brands with vetted international manufacturers, initially focusing on Indonesia and its established manufacturing networks. Its model combines AI automation with human brokers who help manage supplier discovery, quotations, quality control, logistics, and vendor financing. This hybrid approach addresses a major challenge in international sourcing: finding reliable suppliers is not simply a matter of comparing prices, but also requires trust, local relationships, and ongoing oversight. Haryono aims to make those capabilities accessible to smaller brands that might otherwise struggle to establish reliable overseas manufacturing partnerships.
The Next Chapter of Intelligent Procurement
The procurement industry is moving beyond basic digitization toward systems that can actively participate in business operations. These founders are approaching that transformation from different perspectives, whether through autonomous purchasing agents, supplier discovery, international manufacturing relationships, or data-driven spending analysis.
As AI capabilities continue to mature, procurement could become less about managing administrative processes and more about making strategic decisions. Businesses will increasingly expect technology to identify opportunities, coordinate suppliers, negotiate better terms, and execute routine transactions with greater independence. The companies building toward that future are helping redefine what modern procurement can accomplish.
