Enterprise AI firm Freehand secures $75M led by Battery Ventures, NewRoad

Freehand, a San Francisco-headquartered enterprise AI company founded by Indian entrepreneurs, has raised $75 million in a funding round co-led by Battery Ventures, a global technology-focused investment firm, and NewRoad Capital Partners, which backs technology businesses.

Existing investors including PSP Growth, the growth investment arm backed by former US Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, and Nexus Venture Partners also participated in the round.

The fresh capital will be used to expand Freehand’s autonomous AI platform, which helps large enterprises manage supply-chain spending.

The company says its software replaces labour-intensive processes and legacy procurement systems by deploying AI agents that can negotiate with suppliers, process invoices, enforce contracts and reconcile payments with minimal human intervention.

Freehand already counts Meta, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Dunkin’ and Cardinal Health among its customers. According to the company, early deployments have helped customers recover between 5 and 10% of spending in complex procurement categories, complete workflows five to seven times faster and reduce procure-to-pay cycles by more than 70%.

Co-founder and chief executive officer Nitin Jayakrishnan said enterprises collectively spend billions on software while employing large workforces to perform tasks that existing systems cannot automate effectively. He added Freehand was built to bridge that gap with AI agents that “decide, act and take accountability for outcomes”.

At the heart of the platform is Freehand’s Category Context Graph, a proprietary system that combines structured business data with information embedded in contracts, emails and other documents. This gives the AI a detailed understanding of procurement decisions while maintaining an auditable record of every action, an increasingly important requirement as enterprises adopt AI in regulated business functions.

Co-founder Abhijeet Manohar said the company shifted its focus from building software that merely assists employees to creating software that effectively performs the work itself. According to him, the crucial difference is that autonomous AI agents act using business context rather than simply generating suggestions.

Investors believe the company’s approach addresses a major shift in enterprise software.

Battery Ventures General Partner Dharmesh Thakker said Freehand’s AI agents possess enterprise context, make decisions and take action rather than functioning as simple copilots, adding that this capability “unlocks millions in savings for enterprises”.

The investment comes as enterprise AI continues to attract strong investor interest globally and in India. AI has emerged as one of the dominant investment themes for venture capital firms, while companies are increasingly focusing on specialised applications that automate complex business workflows instead of offering general-purpose chatbots.