Tim Spencer realizes how complicated it can be to make a purchase while on the run Markai, an e-commerce startup in Asia, during the pandemic.

“We have thousands of suppliers, and we distribute products to many countries around the world,” Spencer (pictured left) told TechCrunch. His staff was overwhelmed by the manual complexity of finding suppliers, negotiating prices, tracking orders, and managing payments.

“I found myself running this big team that wasn’t really set up for success,” he said. He sold Markai in 2023, as it became clear that generative AI could streamline the most time-consuming procurement hurdles for manufacturers and distributors.

Later that year, Spencer was launched Diderot with Lorenz Pallhuber (pictured in the center), a veteran of McKinsey’s procurement practice, and Tom Petit, the former technical co-founder of Lands.

Didero, whose mission is to automate many of the complexities of global procurement, just raised $30 million in Series A led by Chemistry and Headline, with participation from Microsoft’s venture fund M12.

“Global trade runs on natural language communication,” Spencer said. “These are emails, WeChat, phone calls, purchase orders, and packing lists.”

Until the advent of generative AI, these fragmented pieces had to be tracked by people who spent their days chasing down suppliers and manually updating systems of record. Didero claims that its platform can ingest that communication, putting a significant part of the procurement workflow on autopilot.

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

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

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

Didero has some small competitors who can handle some of the tasks that the company does. For example, Cavela and stone help brands source and negotiate prices with manufacturers, but according to Spencer, these companies serve small and medium-sized companies and do not manage the entire procurement process, from the first quote to the final payment.

Didero has many customers but only one name, FOOTPRINTSa provider of sustainable, plant-based packaging.