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5U AI Raises $3.2M For Forwarder Platform

[ August 3, 2026   //   Gary Burrows ]

Enterprise AI startup Freehand has raised US$75 million to expand deployment of autonomous artificial intelligence agents designed to manage supply chain spending, procurement and invoice processing for large global manufacturers and retailers.

The Series B financing was co-led by Battery Ventures and NewRoad Capital Partners, with participation from PSP Growth, Nexus Venture Partners and existing investors. The company said the new capital will support product development and expand deployments among Fortune 500 customers.

Freehand emerged from stealth earlier this year and counts Meta, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Dunkin’ and Cardinal Health among its early users. Unlike AI assistants that provide recommendations, the company’s software is designed to execute procurement and finance workflows, including supplier negotiations, contract compliance, invoice auditing, payment processing and spend reconciliation.

CEO Nitin Jayakrishnan said the platform addresses a longstanding gap between enterprise software and the labor-intensive processes still required to manage global supply chains.

“Enterprises spend US$16 billion a year on supply chain software and another US$348 billion hiring people to do what this software cannot,” Jayakrishnan said in a statement. “We built Freehand to close that gap with AI agents that decide, act and take accountability for outcomes.”

The company said customers have reported recovering 5 percent to 10 percent of spending in complex procurement categories, completing workflows five to seven times faster, and reducing procure-to-pay cycle times by more than 70 percent during early deployments.

Freehand’s platform is built around what it calls a Category Context Graph, which combines structured enterprise data with contracts, invoices, emails and other unstructured information to provide AI agents with the context needed to execute transactions while maintaining an auditable record of every decision.

The announcement reflects a broader shift across the logistics technology sector as software developers move beyond generative AI tools that assist employees toward “agentic AI” systems capable of independently executing business processes. The trend is gaining momentum as supply chain organizations seek to reduce administrative costs while improving resilience amid ongoing trade policy changes, tariff uncertainty and labor shortages.

For logistics providers and shippers, procurement, freight payment and supplier management are emerging as some of the first enterprise functions where autonomous AI is being deployed at scale, potentially reshaping how transportation and supply chain operations are managed over the coming decade.

Tags: Battery Ventures, Freehand, NewRoad Capital Partners