Aerchain, a Bengaluru-based procurement technology company, said it has closed a $13 million Series A round led by Pavestone VC, with participation from IndiaMART and other investors. The firm intends to deploy the proceeds to broaden its market presence and accelerate development of its artificial intelligence capabilities as it advances what it describes as a "Spend Operating System".

According to the company, the platform is designed to shift procurement from a reactive cost centre into a proactive function that identifies savings, surfaces risks and executes opportunities autonomously. Aerchain claims its system automates roughly 80% of routine procurement work, with specialised AI agents producing analysis, benchmarks, negotiation playbooks and spending-pattern insights to generate actionable recommendations. The startup says its multi-agent architecture covers the procurement lifecycle from conversational intake, statement of work generation, vendor discovery and request-for-quotation automation through to autonomous negotiation, evaluation, award, invoice handling and payment tracking.

Co-founder and CEO Harsha Kadimisetty said, "The future of procurement is a system that thinks for you, acts on your behalf, and comes to you only when it needs a decision. We're building procurement agents that run 24/7, proactively finding savings, flagging risks, and executing on opportunities before anyone has to ask. This funding accelerates this transformation across enterprises at a much bigger scale."

Aerchain was founded in 2019 by BITS Pilani alumni Harsha Kadimisetty and Himavanth Jasti and operates on a software-as-a-service model. According to an earlier report, the startup raised $3 million in a 2021 pre-Series A round co-led by IndiaMART and Season Two Ventures to scale product development and expand its team, and has since worked with clients across sectors including beverages, real estate and automotive.

Pavestone VC's managing partner V Laxmikanth said, “Aerchain is re-architecting procurement through an AI-first platform that delivers measurable efficiency and cost outcomes for global enterprises. Its strong adoption, scalable model, and clear product leadership position it well for sustained value creation in a large and under-digitised market."

Industry activity in AI-enabled enterprise software suggests investor appetite for automation platforms. According to reporting, Pavestone previously led a funding round for Bizom, a retail intelligence SaaS, while other AI-focused vendors such as Appvance have also drawn multimillion-dollar infusions to expand autonomous capabilities and international reach. These transactions highlight growing venture interest in companies that promise to reduce manual tasks and drive operational outcomes through machine intelligence.

Aerchain’s announcement positions the startup to push its proposition that procurement teams spend a disproportionate share of time on low-value operational work and that automation can free them to focus on strategic activities. The company said the new capital will be used to scale sales and partnerships and to deepen the autonomous intelligence that underpins its Spend Operating System.

Source: Noah Wire Services