Freehand at a glance
As of- [1] Equity raised: Sum of the 2 sourced equity rounds in the funding history below (debt, tender offers and rumored rounds excluded), July 29, 2026
- [2] Lead investors: Forbes, July 29, 2026
- [3] Founded: techfundingnews.com (retrieved July 29, 2026)
- [4] Headquarters: Crunchbase News (retrieved July 29, 2026)
What Freehand does
Freehand builds AI agents that manage supply-chain spend for large companies, from procurement and supplier management to invoicing and payments.[1] The company is headquartered in San Francisco.[2] The core technology is a Category Context Graph that records every decision, transaction and exception within a category of spend.[1] Battery Ventures general partner Dharmesh Thakker joined the board.[1] In October 2026 it launched Freehand Pay, built on Stripe's payment infrastructure, so its agents can execute payments as well as approve them.[2],[1] Fortune 50 companies that tested Freehand Pay cut accounts-payable cycle times by 80% to 90%, the company says.[2]
Business model and customers
Its agents read contracts, negotiate with suppliers, catch billing leakage and process payments, starting with invoice checking and payment that companies have typically outsourced.[1] Customers include Meta, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Dunkin' and Cardinal Health.[2] The company says early customers recovered 5% to 10% of spend in complex categories and cut procure-to-pay cycles by more than 70%.[1]
Leadership
- It was co-founded by CEO Nitin Jayakrishnan, who previously built and sold logistics software company Pando, and Abhijeet Manohar.[1]
Freehand profile
written 2026-10-24Freehand sells AI agents that manage supply-chain spend for large companies and announced a $75M round co-led by Battery and NewRoad in July 2026.
What Freehand does
Freehand sells autonomous AI agents that manage supply-chain spend for large companies. Its July 2026 release says the agents take on procurement, supplier management, and invoice and payment operations in complex categories such as logistics, direct materials and MRO. Its October releases call Freehand the AI alternative to procurement and accounts payable labor.[1],[2]
Freehand says the agents read contracts, audit every invoice, resolve disputes with carriers and post results to systems such as SAP, Oracle or Coupa with an audit trail. The homepage pitches AI Teams for freight audit and lists logistics and global trade products. The company calls its central intellectual property a Category Context Graph, which records decisions, transactions and exceptions across a category of spend.[3],[1]
Freehand launched Freehand Pay on October 13, 2026, which extends its AI Teams from invoice audit through payment and reconciliation. The release says Freehand Pay pays suppliers in their local currency over local rails and is powered by Stripe. It says Freehand's payment partners support supplier payments across 150+ countries and 60+ currencies.[4]
History
Freehand's founders are Nitin Jayakrishnan, co-founder and CEO, and Abhijeet Manohar, co-founder. No founding year appears in the sources reviewed.[1]
Freehand's relationship to Pando is described two ways. The July 2026 release says Jayakrishnan previously built and sold Pando, an enterprise SaaS platform for logistics. Startup Fortune reports that Freehand's own launch materials describe it as formerly Pando, built by the team behind Pi, an AI agent for freight and logistics. The release page footer says Freehand builds on the success of Pi and emerges as a standalone agentic AI studio.[1],[5]
Startup Fortune reports that Freehand's February 2026 materials said the platform was already live at Fortune 500 enterprises when it came out of stealth at Manifest 2026. Freehand's homepage lists a press release dated February 19, 2026 saying it was recognized in the 2026 Gartner Market Guide for Freight Audit and Payment Providers.[5],[3]
Freehand's headquarters is reported inconsistently. The July 2026 release and the October releases say it is headquartered in San Francisco. The website footer lists an address on North Green Street in Chicago and an Asia Pacific headquarters in Chennai, India. Startup Fortune, citing the Times of India, says half the team is in India, with significant operations in Chennai.[1],[2],[3],[5]
Funding
Freehand announced $75 million in funding on July 29, 2026, co-led by Battery Ventures and NewRoad Capital Partners. The release also says others participated and that Dharmesh Thakker, a General Partner at Battery Ventures, is joining Freehand's board. A Freehand release of October 6, 2026 repeats that Freehand raised $75 million in July 2026 from Battery Ventures, NewRoad Capital Partners, PSP Growth and Nexus Venture Partners.[1],[2]
Startup Fortune reports the round as a Series B that brings Freehand's total funding to $100 million. The company's own release does not label the round or state total funding, so treat both as unconfirmed.[5],[1]
Freehand's release also quotes partners at NewBuild Venture Capital and Iron Pillar. It does not say whether either firm invested in this round. No valuation has been disclosed.[1]
People
Freehand's release names Nitin Jayakrishnan as co-founder and CEO and Abhijeet Manohar as co-founder. An October 2026 release quotes Pratima Garg as enterprise product partner at Freehand.[1],[4]
Freehand's board will include Dharmesh Thakker of Battery Ventures, according to the July 2026 release. The release is dated from San Francisco, and its media contact is an outside PR firm.[1]
Customers and partners
Freehand names Meta, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Dunkin' and Cardinal Health as customers in its July 2026 release. It says that across early deployments customers recovered 5–10% of spend in complex categories, completed workflows 5–7x faster and shortened procure-to-pay cycles by more than 70%. These outcome figures are company claims and are not tied to a named customer.[1]
Freehand's homepage says "We recovered $260M in wasteful spend in 2025 alone." An October 2026 release says Freehand processes millions in annual spend for global enterprises, including more than $20M annually for a single Fortune 50 consumer goods company. The two figures measure different things and the sources do not reconcile them.[3],[4]
Freehand says a select group of Fortune 50 companies using Freehand Pay reduced accounts payable cycle times by 80–90%, while AI Teams handled 99% of underlying decisions in place of manual review.[4]
Freehand's July 2026 release quotes Matt Algar of Unilever calling Freehand one of the first full-scale agentic deployments at Unilever. The homepage quotes Suketu Gandhi of Kearney and Dileep Bhattacharjee, a partner at McKinsey, about partnerships with Freehand AI Teams.[1],[3]
Freehand's October 2026 release says the company has been recognized as a TIME Best Invention and a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer. These are the company's own statements and the sources reviewed do not give the year or category.[2]
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Company Snapshot
Freehand is an enterprise SaaS company, based in San Francisco, California, USA, founded 2024.
Recent changes
- Jul 29, 2026Jul 29, 2026Raised $75M Series B Forbes
- Jul 29, 2026Jul 29, 2026First reported total funding: $100M Crunchbase News
- Jul 29, 2026Jul 29, 2026New investor: NewRoad Capital Partners Forbes
- Jul 29, 2026Jul 29, 2026New investor: Nexus Venture Forbes
- Jul 29, 2026Jul 29, 2026New investor: Battery Ventures Forbes
Earlier changes (4)
- Jul 29, 2026Jul 29, 2026Freehand Raises $75M to Automate Supply Chains Pulse story
- Jul 29, 2026Jul 29, 2026Freehand Raises $75M Series B for AI Supply Chains Pulse story
- Jul 29, 2026Jul 29, 2026Freehand Raises $75M Series B, Tops $100M Total Pulse story
- Mar 1, 2024Mar 1, 2024Raised $25M Series A techfundingnews.com
Funding history
2 equity events · newest first · sources dated per row| Date | Round | Amount | Valuation | Lead investors | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 29, 2026 | Series B | $75M | — | Forbes | |
| Mar 2024 | Series A | $25M | — | — | techfundingnews.com |
Equity only. “Equity raised” above sums the rounds with a dated, linked source; rumored rounds, tender offers and secondary sales are listed but not counted, and debt financing is listed separately.
How Freehand has been funded
On July 29, 2026 Freehand announced $75 million in funding co-led by Battery Ventures and NewRoad Capital Partners, with PSP Growth, the fund led by former U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, and Nexus Venture Partners participating.[1] The round brought total funding to $100 million, according to Startup Fortune.[3]
Investors
Latest Pulse
- Aug 9, 2026Enterprise AI Raised Another $590M You MissedSimile, CAIS, Eliyan and Freehand raised a combined $590M in the last two weeks of July for synthetic-user modeling, alternative-investment AI, chip interconnects and supply-chain agents — infrastructure and tooling money the model-layer headlines mostly missed.→
- Jul 29, 2026Freehand Raises $75M Series B, Tops $100M TotalFreehand raised a $75 million Series B led by Battery Ventures, bringing total funding to $100 million for its AI system that negotiates, adjudicates and settles complex procurement spend.→
- Jul 29, 2026Freehand Raises $75M Series B for AI Supply ChainsFreehand raised $75 million in Series B funding co-led by Battery Ventures and NewRoad Capital Partners to expand its enterprise AI platform for supply-chain automation, bringing its total funding to $100 million.→
- Jul 29, 2026Freehand Raises $75M to Automate Supply ChainsFreehand raised a $75 million Series B to scale AI agents that manage Fortune 500 supply-chain spend, with customers including Meta, Unilever, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson already live on the platform.→
Coverage Timeline
newest first- Aug 9, 2026FUNDINGEnterprise AI Raised Another $590M You Missed~$590M combined→
- Jul 29, 2026FUNDINGFreehand Raises $75M Series B, Tops $100M Total$75M Series B→
- Jul 29, 2026FUNDINGFreehand Raises $75M Series B for AI Supply Chains$75M Series B→
- Jul 29, 2026FUNDINGFreehand Raises $75M to Automate Supply Chains$75M Series B→
All Coverage
FUNDING~$590M combined
Enterprise AI Raised Another $590M You Missed
Simile, CAIS, Eliyan and Freehand raised a combined $590M in the last two weeks of July for synthetic-user modeling, alternative-investment AI, chip interconnects and supply-chain agents — infrastructure and tooling money the model-layer headlines mostly missed.
BY THE NUMBERS
Freehand Raises $75M Series B, Tops $100M Total
FUNDING$75M Series B
Freehand Raises $75M Series B, Tops $100M Total
Freehand raised a $75 million Series B led by Battery Ventures, bringing total funding to $100 million for its AI system that negotiates, adjudicates and settles complex procurement spend.
Freehand Raises $75M Series B for AI Supply Chains
FUNDING$75M Series B
Freehand Raises $75M Series B for AI Supply Chains
Freehand raised $75 million in Series B funding co-led by Battery Ventures and NewRoad Capital Partners to expand its enterprise AI platform for supply-chain automation, bringing its total funding to $100 million.
Freehand Raises $75M to Automate Supply Chains
FUNDING$75M Series B
Freehand Raises $75M to Automate Supply Chains
Freehand raised a $75 million Series B to scale AI agents that manage Fortune 500 supply-chain spend, with customers including Meta, Unilever, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson already live on the platform.
Related Companies
Freehand FAQ
Who invested in Freehand?
On July 29, 2026 Freehand announced $75 million in funding co-led by Battery Ventures and NewRoad Capital Partners, with PSP Growth, the fund led by former U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, and Nexus Venture Partners participating.[1]
Who founded Freehand?
Freehand was co-founded by CEO Nitin Jayakrishnan, who previously built and sold logistics software company Pando, and Abhijeet Manohar.[1]
Where is Freehand headquartered?
Freehand is headquartered in San Francisco.[2]
What does Freehand do?
Freehand builds AI agents that manage supply-chain spend for large companies, from procurement and supplier management to invoicing and payments.[1]
How much has Freehand raised?
Freehand has raised at least $100M in equity across 2 sourced funding rounds tracked by Value Add VC. The most recent was a $75M Series B in July 2026, reported by Forbes. Debt financing, tender offers and secondary sales are not counted.
When was Freehand founded and where is it based?
Freehand was founded in 2024 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California, USA, according to techfundingnews.com and Crunchbase News.
References
researched 2026-10-23Sources & methodologyshow
Where these figures come from
- Forbesmajor outlet1 fact
- Crunchbase Newsresearch database1 fact
- techfundingnews.comValue Add VC data1 fact
Figures are labelled Reported (a source states it), Estimated, Derived (computed from other facts) or Rumored (in talks / unconfirmed). Rumors never replace a confirmed figure. Each figure keeps its own as-of date; history is preserved rather than overwritten.