The Zinit team, including co-founder and CEO Anton Buzdalin, far right / Courtesy of Zinit
Procurement may be one of the most data-heavy, repetitive functions in enterprise operations — but it’s also one of the least digitised. More than half of all procurement processes are still manual, despite the sector representing a $10 trillion global industry. That makes it ripe for automation and AI-powered overhaul.
Zinit, an AI-powered procurement platform, has raised an $8m seed round led by AltaIR Capital, with participation from DVC, an early backer of Perplexity.
I asked Anton Buzdalin, Zinit co-founder and CEO, to pinpoint the biggest inefficiency the startup is solving.
“Transparency,” he said. “Giving the tool to easily — without integration, without significant efforts — unhide the most cost efficient process just brings so much value in cost reduction transparency.”
Both Buzdalin and his co-founder, Andrey Chernogorov, have long histories in this space. Chernogorov has previously founded four procurement platforms, including Bidzaar — one of Eastern Europe’s leading procurement automation platforms and a startup that Buzdalin invested in.
Bidzaar, which is based in Russia, was eventually sold when the war started. But Zinit’s founders took their learnings from the Bidzaar platform and used it in their next venture.
Zinit operates on a “pay-for-results” model and, according to the company, helps reduce corporate spend by up to 30%. It refunds the client in 10–15% of cases, whenever the client ends up not actually using the platform.
The startup is particularly focusing on tail spend — ad hoc company spending and uncategorised supplier purchases that are typically low in volume or value. It’s a category often overlooked by large spend-management platforms but still represents a huge market: tail spend alone is a $1 trillion opportunity, not including the US.
The platform automates sourcing, matching and supplier outreach through AI tools, eliminating the need for the large teams previously required for these tasks. Its database of 80 million verified suppliers, each with detailed company information, lets the platform quickly filter down to the most suitable options — usually about 1,000 per request.
Zinit began in India and Indonesia to build out the product before starting US expansion a month ago. They were cost-effective testing grounds, Buzdalin explains, ahead of moving to a much more mature market.
The company’s India offices also provide 24/7 back-office support, smoothing its US entry.
With fresh capital and early traction in Asia, Zinit now plans to double down on the US expansion and push its AI transparency tools deeper into one of the last major enterprise functions still dominated by manual work.