Chennai-Focused AI Startup Freehand Bags $75 Mn for Agentic Enterprise Supply Chains

San Francisco-based agentic AI startup Freehand, with a significant presence in Chennai, has raised $75 million in a funding round co-led by Battery Ventures and NewRoad Capital Partners, as it looks to expand its autonomous AI platform for enterprise supply chains, marking one of the largest funding rounds in the emerging category.

The round also saw participation from PSP Growth, led by former US Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, Nexus Venture Partners, and existing investors. With the latest raise, the startup has secured a total of $100 million in funding since its launch in 2024. 

Around half of Freehand's workforce is based in India, with significant operations in Chennai.

Founded by former Pando executives Nitin Jayakrishnan and Abhijeet Manohar, Freehand develops AI agents that autonomously execute supply chain workflows, including auditing invoices, negotiating rates, enforcing contracts, reconciling transactions, and processing supplier payments. The platform has already been deployed by enterprises including Meta, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Dunkin', and Cardinal Health.

Announcing the funding on LinkedIn, Jayakrishnan highlighted the company's confidence in its technology by attaching a performance guarantee. "We've raised $75M to give you a guarantee: if we can't find $500K your company wasted on overpaid invoices, we'll pay you $10K," he wrote.

Describing the problem Freehand aims to solve, he added, "A Fortune 500 gets a million invoices a year... each surcharge is small enough that escalating it costs more than paying it. And there are a million of them." According to Jayakrishnan, the company's AI analyses contracts, invoices, purchase orders, transaction records, and communications to identify hidden leakages and automate complex procurement decisions.

The company claims its platform recovered $260 million in excess spending across customers over the past year by analysing more than 19 million invoices. In early deployments, organisations have reportedly recovered 5–10% of spending in complex procurement categories, accelerated workflows by five to seven times and reduced procure-to-pay cycles by over 70%, it added.