Munich Startup Lio Technologies Secures $30 Million Series A to Implement Agentic AI in Enterprise Procurement
Munich, March 5, 2026 – Lio (formerly askLio), the company behind an agentic AI platform for enterprise procurement, today announced the closing of a $30 million Series A financing round. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), with participation from Y Combinator and XYZ Investors. This fresh capital brings Lio’s total funding to $33 million, which will be used to accelerate product development and expand into the U.S. market.
Procurement is one of the largest cost centers in companies, yet it often functions like an administrative back-office function. Globally, companies invest over $180 billion annually in procurement personnel, compared to only about $10 billion for procurement software. These figures highlight the extent of manual work still involved around existing systems. Workflows are slow and inefficient, with requests traversing multiple systems, rule sets, and approval steps. Despite significant investments in eProcurement software, decisions are still made at human speed, forcing teams to staff up or outsource tasks, often at costs up to 20 times that of a software solution.
Lio addresses this challenge by introducing Agent Operating Procedures (AOPs) in procurement – a paradigm shift enabled by recent advancements in AI that, for the first time, allow for the autonomous execution of complex enterprise workflows.
Instead of adding another layer of procurement software, Lio provides companies with a virtual, agentic procurement department. The AI agents act like a procurement workforce: they execute the same standard processes as experienced buyers, but with machine speed and scalability. These agents prioritize requests, analyze offers, compare suppliers, conduct negotiations, onboard vendors, and handle end-to-end purchasing across ERP systems, inboxes, contracts, and the open web. This approach represents a fundamental reorientation of back-office operations and challenges the long-held belief that procurement must necessarily scale with an increasing number of employees.
Instead of merely shifting tasks between systems, Lio’s agents do the work themselves – replacing fragmented workflows and costly manual review processes with intelligent automation. This frees up procurement teams for strategic tasks, compliance, and sustainable savings.
“The procurement organization of the future will look fundamentally different from today,” says Vladimir Keil, founder and CEO of Lio. “Teams will no longer scale through additional personnel or more tools, but through AI agents that execute processes end-to-end. Procurement teams will evolve from manual labor to managing and monitoring an AI workforce. Lio was designed to create virtual buyers who work hand-in-hand with human teams – and together shape the procurement organization of the future.”
Since its launch in 2023, Lio’s agents have managed billions in spending for companies and are used by dozens of Global 2000 and Fortune 500 companies worldwide. Customers include Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurer; Brose, one of the largest family-owned automotive suppliers globally; and Novozymes, a global leader in biological solutions – alongside companies in chemicals, postal and parcel services, retail, transportation, medical technology, and pharmaceuticals.
“Leading organizations are rapidly transitioning their procurement models to AI-powered operating models. Agentic AI systems for procurement like Lio will play a central role in this transformation. What particularly distinguishes Lio is the degree of innovation and creativity with which the founder has addressed one of the biggest challenges in this area: the requirements of enterprise customers. Lio is rethinking procurement for a wide variety of deployment environments – and the underlying technology is fundamentally different from anything I’ve worked with in my career. The impact is real, and the ROI is shortened from years to weeks,” says Jared Petras, Senior Director Global Procurement Digital Transformation at Walmart.
“In collaboration with Lio, we are redefining the future of purchasing at Schaeffler. The rapid progress and measurable results underscore the transformative potential of agent-based AI. This collaboration strengthens our AI-powered capabilities, increases efficiency on a large scale, and highlights our commitment to being a pioneer in innovation and operational excellence,” says Andreas Schick, COO of Schaeffler, one of the world’s largest automotive and industrial suppliers.
Companies using Lio report:
- Over 95% usage rate – with a consumer-like shopping experience in just a few clicks
- 85% less manual effort – eliminating the need to outsource large parts of procurement processes
- 10% additional savings – through optimized sourcing, better negotiations, and real-time optimization
- 100% customer retention – thanks to fast implementation and measurable results
In one example, a global Tier-1 industrial manufacturer automated 75% of previously outsourced procurement processes within six months, freeing up capacity equivalent to ten full-time positions. An internationally leading retail company achieved a flawless execution rate of 99.6% for its most complex procurement processes within two weeks, at only 7% of the cost of classic BPO solutions.
“We are entering a phase where AI in the enterprise environment goes beyond workflow co-pilots and enables autonomous multi-agent execution,” says Seema Amble, Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. “Lio applies this transformation to procurement – one of the largest and most operationally complex functions in the enterprise.”
About Lio
Lio (formerly askLio) develops the world’s most advanced AI-powered procurement workforce for enterprises. Every purchasing request is handled by specialized, parallel-working agents – they research suppliers, negotiate terms, manage approvals, and monitor deliveries simultaneously. What used to take hours of team resources is now executed by a coordinated network of AI agents. Learn more at lio.ai.
About Andreessen Horowitz
Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a venture capital firm that supports ambitious founders who are shaping the future with technology. The company is phase-agnostic and invests from seed to venture to growth stages in technology companies – including in AI, Bio + Healthcare, Consumer, Crypto, Enterprise, FinTech, Games, Infrastructure, and companies in the context of “American Dynamism.” Founded in 2009 in Silicon Valley, a16z manages $46 billion in committed capital across multiple funds.
