Lio Raises $30M in Series A to Scale Procurement AI Platform

Procurement isn’t broken because teams lack tools. It’s broken because the tools still expect humans to do the hauling. For decades the solution was more software, more dashboards, more systems promising efficiency while quietly adding another step to the maze. Then a group of founders who had lived that pain firsthand decided to approach the problem differently.

Congratulations to Vladimir “Vladi” Keil, Lukas Heinzmann, and Till Wagner for building Lio into one of the more interesting signals in enterprise AI right now. The story starts where most enterprise stories do, inside the machine. Vladimir Keil experienced procurement friction while working inside a large company and again while selling enterprise software. Till Wagner had a moment at SAP that borders on comedy if you have ever worked in enterprise systems. Wagner could not purchase equipment for his own replacement using SAP’s own procurement tools. That kind of irony has launched more than a few good companies.

So the founders built Lio around a simple observation. Procurement is full of structured rules wrapped around unstructured chaos. Requests arrive through inboxes, documents, contracts, vendor portals, and half a dozen enterprise systems that rarely talk to each other. Instead of creating another interface for humans to manage, Lio built a virtual procurement workforce powered by specialized AI agents. These agents read documents, analyze suppliers, negotiate terms, onboard vendors, and execute purchasing workflows across existing ERP and procurement systems. Weeks of coordination compress into minutes.

The traction arrived quickly. In less than two years the platform has grown to 500K+ users across 100+ enterprises, with AI agents managing billions in enterprise spend. Customers report 95%+ adoption, 85% reduction in manual work, and roughly 10% incremental savings through better sourcing and negotiation. Perhaps the cleanest signal in enterprise software is the simplest one. 100% customer retention.

The leadership bench around the founders is equally deliberate. Philipp Kutschker, serving as Chief of Staff, helps orchestrate the operational rhythm behind the company’s growth. Jill Staebe, Head of Marketing, ensures the signal cuts through the noise in a market suddenly crowded with AI claims. When the internal engine is this tight, momentum tends to compound.

The investor table reflects that momentum. Lio raised $30M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz. Seema Amble at Andreessen Horowitz led the round, joined by SV Angel, Harry Stebbings, and Y Combinator, where Tom Blomfield served as Lio’s primary partner during the S23 batch. The capital is fueling expansion across the United States, with a growing presence in New York while the core engineering and operations continue building from Munich.

There is also a larger economic tension sitting behind all of this. Enterprises spend roughly $180B every year on procurement talent while procurement software captures closer to $10B. That gap exists because most procurement work still runs on human coordination. Lio’s thesis is that agentic AI finally closes that gap, allowing procurement teams to scale execution without scaling headcount. Customers like Munich Re, Brose, and Novozymes are already seeing the implications. Leaders across organizations like Walmart and Schaeffler are signaling where this direction leads. Procurement has always been about leverage. Lio is simply giving the function a new kind of workforce.