**San Francisco:** LightSource Labs, an AI-powered procurement platform, has exited stealth with $33 million funding at a $130 million valuation. The platform automates strategic and direct sourcing, serving major firms like Yum! Brands, and plans to expand across sectors, enhancing procurement with AI during supply chain volatility.
LightSource Labs Inc., an AI-driven enterprise procurement platform, has officially emerged from stealth mode, announcing a significant $33 million funding round at a valuation of $130 million. The investment, co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Bain Capital Ventures with participation from J2 Ventures, aims to accelerate the growth and enhancement of LightSource’s innovative platform designed to transform both strategic and direct material sourcing through artificial intelligence.
Based in San Francisco, LightSource has demonstrated impressive market traction, reporting a tenfold increase in annual recurring revenue (ARR) over the past 18 months. The company has secured contracts with a diverse range of major enterprises, including Yum! Brands, Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP), Serta Simmons Bedding, Hello Fresh, and Shure. These partnerships reflect the platform’s capability to cater to various industries, offering scalable procurement solutions.
The new funding will be used to expand LightSource’s workforce, enhance the platform’s features, and broaden its reach into additional sectors such as industrial chemicals and pharmaceuticals. The platform aims to become a strategic data repository linking buyers and sellers globally, ultimately positioning itself as a cornerstone in modern enterprise procurement.
Procurement remains a critical but often underserved function within many organisations, particularly in the area of direct sourcing—the acquisition of materials essential to product manufacture. Notably, approximately 70% of procurement teams worldwide still do not employ software tools for sourcing activities. Instead, they rely on manual processes involving numerous emails, spreadsheets, invoices, and contracts, which are often inconsistent and difficult to manage. LightSource tackles these challenges by delivering a digitalised solution designed specifically for both direct and strategic indirect sourcing, which can account for up to 90% of a company’s profit and loss operations.
Spencer Penn, co-founder and CEO of LightSource, explained the company’s mission: “We want to make the easy things easier and the hard things possible by scaling our AI-powered solutions and converting procurement from a necessary evil to a critical business driver.”
LightSource operates as a next-generation procurement platform powered by artificial intelligence, streamlining the sourcing process for both buyers and suppliers. For buyers, key features include automated supplier discovery, management of requests for quotes (RFQs), bid comparison, and facilitation of team collaboration. Suppliers benefit from an easier process to review RFQs and respond with competitive bids, helping them secure new business opportunities.
A standout feature of LightSource is its AI-driven data interoperability, enabling users to standardise and analyse quotes received in various formats—such as emails, PDFs, and spreadsheets—with detailed visibility down to the Bill of Materials (BOM) level. Since the start of 2024, the platform has processed over $1 billion in spending and facilitated more than 1,100 sourcing events.
Roger Larsh, Chief Procurement Officer of RSCS, the supply chain unit of Yum! Brands, praised the platform’s impact: “LightSource has delivered faster decision-making and meaningful cost improvements. The team has worked closely with us to understand our business, ensuring that the platform solves our current needs while proactively developing useful enhancements. We’ve seen strong adoption across our team thanks to easy usability and rapid time-to-value, and we’re proud to help LightSource lead the way transforming our industry.”
The timing of LightSource’s growth comes amid a global landscape marked by trade uncertainty and supply chain volatility, emphasising the demand for robust, agile procurement tools. Real-time supply chain visibility, scenario planning capabilities, and agile decision-making processes are critical in this environment, all features LightSource aims to provide.
Anoushka Vaswani, partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, highlighted the platform’s significance: “Procurement is one of the most critical functions in many enterprises but the lion’s share of procurement teams manage this process manually, leaving millions of dollars of savings on the table. Idan and Spencer have built a next-generation AI-powered platform for direct sourcing. The user love they have garnered from Fortune 500 companies and the versatility of the platform to handle different industries—from electronics to auto to consumer goods—have been impressive.”
Ajay Agarwal, partner at Bain Capital Ventures, added, “With its AI capabilities for data-interoperability, LightSource is fundamentally shifting procurement into the modern era, while driving cost savings for buyers and improving supplier relationships. We’re glad to support Idan, Spencer and the rest of the LightSource team as they become the default operating system for procurement and sourcing on a global scale.”
LightSource positions itself as the only AI-native sourcing system designed to bring procurement teams into the future, providing advanced supplier discovery, quoting, and relationship management tools. The platform is already in use by leading companies such as Yum! Brands, BRP, and Hello Fresh, and continues to expand its influence across multiple sectors. Further information about the company and platform can be found at www.lightsource.ai.
Source: Noah Wire Services
