Pactum AI, a Silicon Valley-based software developer, has raised $20 million in venture capital from a consortium of backers, including Danish shipping giant Maersk, that’s betting on a future where many supplier deals are negotiated without humans.

Pactum’s autonomous bots can contact thousands of suppliers simultaneously seeking the best pricing and terms for routine corporate purchases in logistics and a wide range of other sectors. Maersk has been working with Pactum’s technology since 2021 for spot trucking services.

For years, procurement professionals have been contacted on a daily basis by thousands of AI bots making purchases of office furniture and other goods on behalf of companies. Increasingly, the bots are negotiating with each other.

Following the flurry of investor interest prompted by technological leaps in large language models such as ChatGPT, Pactum says the next wave of AI development will be led by an autonomous workforce.

‘Rapid Emergence’

Martin Rand, co-founder and CEO at Pactum, sees two key trends that all businesses need to understand: “the rapid emergence of AI agents in the workforce” and “the vital need to upskill the human workforce so they can manage their AI colleagues effectively.”

The bots haven’t led to any employee layoffs, Pactum says, because corporate supplier contracts are often not actively managed, and procurement professionals will need to learn to use machine negotiation as a tool.

Launched in 2019, Pactum’s software is negotiating deals in 10 languages for dozens of Fortune 500-sized customers, such as Walmart, Vodafone and Veritiv. The largest autonomously signed deal so far was a $28 million purchase that generated savings of $750,000.

The investors also included Karma Ventures, 3VC, Atomico, Project A, SuperAngel and Portfolion. Pactum’s latest investment round brings its total fundraising to $55 million.

Source and original article: Bloomberg.com