Freehand Secures $75 Million in Series B Funding to Scale Autonomous AI Agents for Supply Chain Management

The San Francisco-based enterprise AI startup Freehand has successfully raised $75 million in a Series B funding round led by Battery Ventures and NewRoad Capital Partners. This funding aims to scale the company's autonomous AI agents, which manage complex supply chain spend and back-office operations for enterprise companies. Nexus Venture Partners and former U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker also participated in the financing. With this new capital injection, Freehand has raised a total of $100 million.

The startup declined to disclose its valuation, but CEO and co-founder Nitin Jayakrishnan mentioned that it was a significant increase from the $25 million raised in its Series A round in March 2024. The recent funding comes at a critical time as tariffs, taxes, and immigration policy strain the outsourcing model that has historically supported supply chains. Freehand’s successful fundraise also aligns with a surge in venture funding for supply chain and logistics-related startups, indicating the strongest year since 2022 with $6.2 billion raised in the first half of 2026 across 350 deals. Founded in February 2024, Freehand was established by logistics veterans Nitin Jayakrishnan and Abhijeet Manohar, who previously co-founded and sold Pando, a SaaS transportation management system (TMS) and procure-to-pay system of record for large enterprise logistics. The duo's experience in building enterprise supply chain software led them to launch Freehand as an independent entity focused on agentic AI.

Their platform targets complex supply chain operations, with AI agents managing non-standard spending across logistics, raw materials, parts, and labor. By operating inside existing company systems, Freehand's software can perform tasks such as reading contracts, policies, emails, and internal data to verify bills, track operational milestones, and handle vendor negotiations. The AI agents also negotiate adjustments directly with suppliers in the event of billing discrepancies, maintaining strategic vendor relationships. Freehand boasts approximately 50 customers, including Meta, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and Cardinal Health, and its platform autonomously processes billions in payments across 60 to 70 countries and hundreds of currencies without human supervision.

The platform has demonstrated various benefits, including recovering 5% to 10% of total spend across categories, completing complex operational workflows 5x to 7x faster, and reducing overall procure-to-pay cycle times by more than 70%. Freehand is pioneering the global rollout of AI deployments at scale that significantly impact daily transactions and operations. Dharmesh Thakker, general partner at Battery Ventures, emphasized the potential for AI to drive efficiency in supply chain and logistics management. He noted that Freehand stands out due to its founder market-fit, focus on the largest Fortune 500 shippers, and clear, measurable business outcomes. The successful funding round reflects the growing interest and investment in AI-driven solutions for supply chain management and back-office operations.