Diderot received $30 million to put manufacturing procurement on “agent” autopilot.

Tim Spencer understood the complexity of the process of purchasing manufacturing during operation Markay, an e-commerce startup In Asia during the epidemic.

“We had thousands of suppliers, and we were distributing products in dozens of countries around the world,” Spencer (pictured left) told TechCrunch. His employees were overwhelmed by the manual complexity of sourcing suppliers, negotiating prices, tracking orders, and managing payments.

“I found myself managing this big team that wasn’t prepared for success,” he said. He sold Markay in 2023, just as it became clear that generative AI could simplify the most time-consuming procurement hurdles for manufacturers and distributors.

Later that year, Spencer was fired Diderot With Lorenz Ballhuber (pictured middle), a veteran of McKinsey’s procurement practice, and Tom Petty, former technical founder of McKinsey Lands.

Diderot, whose mission is to automate many of the complexities of global procurement, has raised a $30 million Series A co-led by Chemistry and Headline, with participation from Microsoft’s M12 Venture Fund.

“Global trade depends on natural language communication,” Spencer said. “It’s emails, WeChat, phone calls, purchase orders, packing lists.”

Until the advent of generative AI, these fragmented pieces had to be tracked by humans who spent their days chasing down suppliers and manually updating systems of record. Didero claims its platform can accommodate those communications, putting much of the procurement workflow on autopilot.

Didero acts as an agent AI layer that sits on top of a company’s existing ERP system, acting as an orchestrator that reads incoming communications and automatically carries out necessary updates and tasks.

“The goal is to go from ‘I need an item’ to checkout without having to lift a finger,” Spencer said.

Unlike Levelpath, Zip, or Oro Labs, which use AI to streamline corporate purchasing processes, Didero focuses on the supply chain. Its platform is designed for manufacturers and distributors who need to source the raw materials and inputs needed to build or sell their products.

Diderot has a few smaller competitors that can handle some of the tasks the company does. For example, Cavella and to forbid Helping brands obtain and negotiate prices with manufacturers, but according to Spencer, these companies serve SMEs do not handle the entire purchasing process, from the first quote to the final payment.

Diderot has dozens of clients but only one name: FootprintSustainable plant-based packaging provider.