The co-founders of Lio understand from personal experience that procurement—the system companies use to buy services from suppliers—frequently causes delays. Vladimir Keil, the company's co-founder and CEO, encountered this issue both as an employee at a large corporation and later while launching his first startup. In response, Keil and his team developed an automated platform powered by AI agents, which are software programs capable of performing tasks autonomously, to address these disjointed procedures.

On Thursday, Lio revealed a $30 million Series A funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Other participants included SV Angels, Harry Stebbings, and Y Combinator, with Lio having been part of the Spring 2023 batch. To date, the company has secured $33 million in total funding. Keil stated that the new capital will support expansion across the United States and enhance the functionality of Lio's AI agents, which are designed to manage the full procurement cycle for business clients.

Procurement sits at the core of corporate expenditure, covering purchases ranging from raw materials to professional services. Each purchase order demands considerable attention: typically requiring access to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, checks of contract management systems, searches in supplier databases, compliance reviews, budget cross-referencing, and email digging. As a result, businesses often assemble large internal teams or outsource the work, leading to a process that is both slow and costly.

Keil recognized that procurement largely involves unstructured data and repetitive tasks, making it an ideal candidate for AI automation. He joined forces with friends Lukas Heinzman and Till Wagner, and together they introduced Lio, a virtual procurement workforce, in 2023. The platform is AI-native with agentic infrastructure that handles the end-to-end procurement process.

"Every earlier iteration of procurement technology was based on the same premise—that humans would perform the work, with technology speeding them up," Keil explained. "We adopt a fundamentally different perspective. Rather than creating software to assist humans in working faster, Lio employs AI agents that carry out the workflow independently."

These Lio agents integrate with existing enterprise systems to review documents, assess suppliers, negotiate terms, and finalize transactions. "Tasks that used to take weeks can now be finished in minutes," Keil noted, mentioning that the startup already assists companies in managing billions in corporate spending. "In one instance, a global manufacturer automated 75% of its formerly outsourced procurement activities within six months."

Lio is part of a growing wave of companies using agentic AI to fundamentally transform enterprise software. Keil views Lio's main competitors as established procurement software providers like SAP Ariba and Oracle, Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) firms, and consultancies that support companies with these operations.

"Instead of dedicating most of their time to handling requests and paperwork, teams can now conduct more negotiations, evaluate more suppliers, and seize savings opportunities that would typically be overlooked," Keil said. "Over time, we believe this shifts procurement from a back-office duty into a far more influential driver of business performance."