Freehand Raises $75 Mn To Expand Enterprise AI Platform

What happened

Freehand has raised $75 Mn (₹718 Cr) in a funding round co-led by Battery Ventures and NewRoad Capital Partners, with participation from PSP Growth, Nexus Venture Partners and other investors Founded in 2024 by Pando cofounders Nitin Jayakrishnan and Abhijeet Manohar, Freehand builds AI agents that automate enterprise supply chain operations, including procurement, supplier management, invoice processing and payments The fundraise comes amid growing investor appetite for enterprise AI and agentic AI startups, following large funding rounds for Sarvam AI and Emergent as businesses increasingly deploy AI agents to automate complex workflows Freehand, an AI startup building autonomous agents for enterprise supply chain operations, has raised $75 Mn (₹718 Cr) in a funding round co-led by Battery Ventures and NewRoad Capital Partners.

The funding comes at a time when enterprise AI startups are attracting a growing share of venture capital as businesses move beyond AI assistants to software that can automate entire workflows. The latest funding comes amid growing investor interest in AI startups. 5 Bn valuation, with HCLTech investing $150 Mn to back its sovereign AI models and enterprise AI offerings.

Why it matters

The round also saw participation from PSP Growth, a venture investment arm backed by former US Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, along with existing investor Nexus Venture Partners and others. The startup plans to use the fresh capital to expand its AI platform, which automates supply chain spending workflows for large enterprises.

Pando cofounders Nitin Jayakrishnan and Abhijeet Manohar founded Freehand in 2024 and the startup has been operating in stealth since. The San Francisco-based startup develops AI agents that handle procurement, supplier management, invoice processing, payments and contract compliance. In essence, the platform replaces manual processes and legacy enterprise software by allowing AI agents to execute decisions across enterprise systems.

Freehand claims its AI agents are already deployed at companies including Meta, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Dunkin’ and Cardinal Health. According to the startup, customers using its platform save 5-10% of spending in complex procurement categories, completed workflows 5-7X faster and reduced procure-to-pay cycles by more than 70%.

What to watch

AI startup Emergent also secured $70 Mn in a Series B round led by SoftBank Vision Fund and Khosla Ventures earlier last month, entering the unicorn club. The latest funding also comes as enterprises increasingly experiment with agentic AI systems that can perform tasks with limited human intervention, instead of merely generating text or recommendations.

Several large tech majors, including Microsoft, Google and Salesforce, have launched AI agent platforms this year, while startups have focused on building specialised agents for functions such as finance, customer support, software development and supply chain management.