Today, we are thrilled to introduce Didero and announce $7M in seed funding to make trading with companies around the world as easy as trading across the street. Our procurement agent integrates with our customers’ existing systems and uses AI trained on best practices in supply chain management to automate the most common procurement workflows — from chasing down suppliers to running an entire RFQ process.
Each year, $32 trillion of international trade binds nations together and provides us with the food, transportation, materials, entertainment and goods that we depend on. At Didero, we’re focused on the unsung heroes that make this trade possible: supply chain teams.
Supply chain teams source vendors around the world, negotiate prices, draft commercial agreements, communicate on individual orders and ensure that the materials needed to make the products we depend on make it to manufacturers’ loading docks. They keep trade flowing despite significant headwinds.
Supply chains are becoming increasingly complex, driven by geopolitical and regulatory factors. Businesses that are heavily reliant on China have been forced to diversify their supply chains and handle the ensuing geographic fragmentation. COVID (and the occasional ship blocking the world’s most important waterway) exposed what happens when trade routes break down and supply chains need to be reconfigured in a matter of days.
Compounding that complexity is the lack of tooling available to help supply chain teams scale their work. Supply chain managers rely on software from the 1990s (or worse) to communicate with suppliers and are left to manually compile the data they need to be strategic. 86% of supply chain management time is spent on routine and reactive work, and 95% of business data is unstructured or hidden, meaning vast troves of potentially invaluable data are left unused. This is personal to us: when Tim was running a company with hundreds of suppliers across several countries, he couldn’t find the right technology to manage his supply chain. In the end, his team had to handle all the manual grunt work themselves.
If we ask supply chain teams to be strategic and navigate increasing complexity, we need to provide them with better tools and give them the mind space and data intelligence to do the crucial work they were hired to do.
Much of the end-to-end procurement process involves communicating in natural language with suppliers. Generative AI makes it possible to parse those communications and turn them into useful insights. Didero integrates with procurement teams’ existing systems — from email to ERPs — to structure and manage supply chain data. Our agents can use that understanding to facilitate and automate sourcing, onboarding, purchase order management, invoice management and payments.
Our manufacturing customers are already seeing huge savings in time and money:
Building Didero is deeply meaningful to us. Growing up, the three of us, Lorenz, Tim and Tom, took it as a given that the world was becoming a more interconnected and peaceful place. We grew up taking full advantage of increasing opportunities for connections: Lorenz had his first taste of America when he went on a student exchange trip from Austria to Seattle. Tim accompanied his pilot father on trips to Tanzania, Honduras and Japan. Tom moved from his hometown in Belgium to experience life in Dallas, Berlin, London, Almaty and New York.
And yet, the last few years have challenged that vision of the world. They have confronted us with autocrats determined to divide us with chaos and fear. They have shown us that when faced with uncertainty, our instinct is to tear down down the bridges we have built. Most importantly, they have proven that peace and prosperity shouldn’t be taken for granted.
Didero is our effort to bring the world closer together.
Having built companies before, we know that startups are a team sport, and we wouldn’t be here without the support of the many incredible people surrounding us. To our dozens of early customers, thank you for taking a bet on us and for spending hours with us, helping us build an incredible product! To our investors and angels, including those who have worked with us in past endeavors, we’re grateful for your trust. And to our incredible team — thank you for your hard work and for being trailblazers with us.
We are actively recruiting ambitious and talented engineers to join our team in New York. If what we’re doing resonates, please get in touch at careers@didero.ai.
If you are a supply chain leader excited to hear more about how AI can transform procurement, we’d also love to hear from you at hello@didero.ai.
Onwards!
Lorenz, Tim and Tom
Didero Co-Founders