
Building AI Teams for Complex Spend Management @Freehand_AI
San Francisco
Joined July 2012
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Two and a half years ago I moved to the US to argue that the largest companies on Earth still pay their bills by hand.
Twenty years of digital transformation moved that work offshore, where it got cheaper per seat and no smaller.
We build AI teams that do the work itself. Every line, with full context and a full audit trail.
The mission: build the machine that frees the human.
Chasing a carrier for a bill of lading should not be anyone's job. That hour never compounds into anything for the person spending it.
And we raised $75M to bring to fruition exactly that.
To our team across the world: you put this into production at companies most startups can't get a first meeting with. Thank you.
To those who backed us: thank you for backing this while it was still an argument.
We saved $260M in cash for cos. like Meta, Unilever, and J&J by finding baseless charges across 19M+ invoices.
Now, we've raised $75M to extend our guarantee: if we can't find $500K in overpaid invoices, we'll pay you $10K.
Book a demo: hubs.li/Q04qP6lp0
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How it works ⬇️
PROBLEM:
A Fortune 500 gets a million invoices a year. Most of them are for a couple hundred dollars.
Checking one properly means opening the contract, pulling the rate card, matching the PO, and hunting down the bill of lading that proves the shipment moved the way the carrier says it did.
All of that work to defend $200. So nobody does it.
The pile goes to a human. The human audits only a sample (12%) and pays the rest (88%) blindly. That's where the money goes.
At a pharma co, we found an uncontracted surcharge billed across global carriers for two years. $26M nobody questioned, because every individual line looked ordinary.
Each surcharge is small enough that escalating it costs more than paying it. And there are a million of them.
------------------------
SOLUTION:
Freehand’s AI reads everything: every line of every invoice, against every contract, rate card, transaction data, bill of lading, warehouse record, time sheet, and email exchange between you and the supplier. It also analyses every past invoice, and transaction data with that supplier,
ever.
It holds all of this knowledge in a Context Graph. When an invoice arrives, it knows what you should pay, what actually shipped, if the service was delivered or not, what the SLA was, and what this supplier billed you for the same service last quarter.
Then it proactively:
> writes up the dispute with the evidence attached
> emails the supplier
> calls her when the email goes quiet
> Slacks your purchases team for more information
> Follows up until the invoice comes back corrected.
> Approves the correct invoice
> Pays it across different currencies and tax structures
> And accrues the right amount to your general ledger
Freehand’s will do all of that to recover $20, because it is doing it across all millions of invoices at the same time, saving 5-10% of company spend with 100% SOX compliance and auditability.
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🚨 RT + reply "FREEHAND" and we'll send you the AI upskilling guide that's already helped 750+ displaced workers move into more secure, higher-paying AI-native roles through Freehand's Transition Bootcamp.
Congratulations to @NitinJkrish & Abhijeet Manohar on @freehand_ai 's $75M round!
We've been early investors and watched Freehand build AI Teams that run procurement, finance, and operations for the world's largest enterprises.
Not assisting the work. Doing it.
@oneabhishek
Nitin Jayakrishnan retweeted
Excited to share @BatteryVentures is leading $75M investment into Freehand.ai, the Agentic AI company built for Supply Chain and Logistics teams. My partner @Dthakker02 shares more in his interview with Bloomberg. bloomberg.com/news/videos/20…
Nitin Jayakrishnan retweeted
We saved $260M in cash for cos. like Meta, Unilever, and J&J by finding baseless charges across 19M+ invoices.
Now, we've raised $75M to extend our guarantee: if we can't find $500K in overpaid invoices, we'll pay you $10K.
Book a demo: hubs.li/Q04qP6lp0
------------------------
How it works ⬇️
PROBLEM:
A Fortune 500 gets a million invoices a year. Most of them are for a couple hundred dollars.
Checking one properly means opening the contract, pulling the rate card, matching the PO, and hunting down the bill of lading that proves the shipment moved the way the carrier says it did.
All of that work to defend $200. So nobody does it.
The pile goes to a human. The human audits only a sample (12%) and pays the rest (88%) blindly. That's where the money goes.
At a pharma co, we found an uncontracted surcharge billed across global carriers for two years. $26M nobody questioned, because every individual line looked ordinary.
Each surcharge is small enough that escalating it costs more than paying it. And there are a million of them.
------------------------
SOLUTION:
Freehand’s AI reads everything: every line of every invoice, against every contract, rate card, transaction data, bill of lading, warehouse record, time sheet, and email exchange between you and the supplier. It also analyses every past invoice, and transaction data with that supplier,
ever.
It holds all of this knowledge in a Context Graph. When an invoice arrives, it knows what you should pay, what actually shipped, if the service was delivered or not, what the SLA was, and what this supplier billed you for the same service last quarter.
Then it proactively:
> writes up the dispute with the evidence attached
> emails the supplier
> calls her when the email goes quiet
> Slacks your purchases team for more information
> Follows up until the invoice comes back corrected.
> Approves the correct invoice
> Pays it across different currencies and tax structures
> And accrues the right amount to your general ledger
Freehand’s will do all of that to recover $20, because it is doing it across all millions of invoices at the same time, saving 5-10% of company spend with 100% SOX compliance and auditability.
-------------------------
🚨 RT + reply "FREEHAND" and we'll send you the AI upskilling guide that's already helped 750+ displaced workers move into more secure, higher-paying AI-native roles through Freehand's Transition Bootcamp.
Nitin Jayakrishnan retweeted
Congratulations 🎉 @NitinJkrish, Abhi, Saravana, and the @freehand_ai team! Excited to double down in this round and collaborate with and welcome my friends @Dthakker02, @webaficionado (@BatteryVentures), and NewRoad!
As early investors, we’ve had a front-row seat to Freehand's development and rollout of AI Teams that run complex procurement, finance, and operations workflows for large enterprises such as @Meta, @JNJNews, @pfizer, and @Unilever.
Freehand represents a fundamental shift from software (that assists people) to autonomous teams (that own outcomes), and is poised to reshape hundreds of billions of dollars in software and labor spend in supply chain with #AI.
Onward! 🚀
Enterprise software has spent decades telling business teams what they already know.
"Here is an anomaly. Here is a recommendation. Good luck."
We think that is a failure of ambition. The real problem was never information. It was decisions nobody documented, context buried in email chains, and judgment locked inside someone's head.
At Freehand, we build AI teams that earn the right to act on your behalf. Not by being smart, but by understanding your business deeply enough that no one needs to hold their hand through it. They read your contracts, learn your commercial rules, absorb your exceptions, and then do the work. When they find an overcharge, they build the case. When they spot a missed SLA, they resolve it. Autonomously. With full accountability.
We did not start Freehand to replace people. We started it because the best people on your team are buried in work that does not deserve them.
When the machine handles the routine, your team steps back into the driver's seat. The work that remains is the work that matters: judgment, strategy, relationships. Not a world with less human work. A world with better human work.
Excellent product, and very fun founders. Go @PromptQL!
Nitin Jayakrishnan retweeted
Had to go see Project Hail Mary right away (it's based on the book of Andy Weir, of also The Martian fame). Both very pleased and relieved to say that 1) the movie sticks very close to the book in both content and tone and 2) is really well executed.
The book is one of my favorites when it comes to alien portrayals because a lot of thought was clearly given to the scientific details of an alternate biochemistry, evolutionary history, sensorium, psychology, language, tech tree, etc. It's different enough that it is highly creative and plausible, but also similar enough that you get a compelling story and one of the best bromances in fiction. Not to mention the other (single-cellular) aliens. I can count fictional portrayals of aliens of this depth on one hand. A lot of these aspects are briefly featured - if you read the book you'll spot them but if you haven't, the movie can't spend the time to do them justice.
I'll say that the movie inches a little too much into the superhero movie tropes with the pacing, the quips, the Bathos and such for my taste, and we get a little bit less the grand of Interstellar and a little bit less of the science of The Martian, but I think it's ok considering the tone of the original content. And it does really well where it counts - on Rocky and the bromance. Thank you to the film crew for the gem!
Ambitious, serious skin in the game. Rooting fot NS!
THE NETWORK SCHOOL
We got an island.
That’s right. Through the power of Bitcoin, we now have a beautiful island near Singapore where we’re building the Network School. We’re starting with a 90-day popup that runs from Sep 23 to Dec 23, right after the Network State Conference. Rent is only $1000/month with roommates or $2000/month solo. And we have plenty of day passes for visitors.
So, go apply online at ns dot com! Then read more below.
THE DARK TALENT
As motivation, I’ve always wanted to expand equality of opportunity around the world. Because my father was born in a desperately poor country, but with the right opportunity he was able to make something of himself. Like dark matter, he was dark talent. And for more than a decade I’ve been thinking about how to give others who are similarly situated the chance to make something of themselves. That is: I’ve been thinking about how to empower the dark talent of the world.
US universities used to fill this role, even imperfectly, and I loved Stanford when I taught there years ago. But the data shows they’ve declined in recent days. And they’re just not affordable or accessible to most of the world. So, it’s time for a new approach. And thanks to Saraswati and Satoshi, I have the resources to endow a new Internet-first institution: the Network School.
The purpose of the Network School is to articulate a vision of peace, trade, internationalism, and technology…even as the rest of the world talks about war, trade war, nationalism, and statism. To revitalize democracy for the internet era, with digital polities and verifiable votes. To train the next generation to be not just leaders of companies, but inspirations for their communities. And to pursue truth, health, and wealth by leveling up our attendees personally, physically, and professionally.
Let me now describe in more detail how the Network School works, who it’s for, and how to apply.
HOW THE NETWORK SCHOOL WORKS
The Network School is for people of all ages, not just the youth. And it’s meant to be lifelong rather than one-off, with both a structured and and an unstructured component. The structured part is about continuous daily self-improvement: learning skills, burning calories, and earning currency. Meanwhile, the unstructured part is about having fun and hanging out with people of similar values.
For short: learn, burn, earn, and fun.
Learn
The first part of the Network School is about learning technologies and humanities.
As motivation, the existing model of US undergraduate education is broken. You pay $100k+ for a four year degree, and then budget nothing for maintenance over the course of your life. It’s like paying $100k+ for a new car and budgeting nothing for maintenance.
By contrast, the Network School is about continuous education. It’s for remote workers, engineers, creators and digital nomads who want to integrate learning into their lives, rather than stopping everything to be a full-time student.
Here’s how that works. We set up mini-classrooms where you can drop in to see the problem of the day.5 You solve that problem and a proctor awards you a cryptocredential, a free non-transferable NFT sent to your crypto wallet that establishes “proof-of-learn.” Often your solution will involve putting code on GitHub/Replit (to show you understand a concept), or posting content to your social media profile (to show you understand a new AI tool). And over time, these cryptocredentials actually build up a cryptoresume proving what you know.
Our initial material focuses on founding tech communities, as distinct from tech companies. As such it touches on everything from crypto, AI, and social media to history, politics, and filmmaking. It should be useful even if you’re just growing a traditional company or building a following. Over time, of course, every branch of the sciences and humanities becomes relevant when building a community. So if this initial experiment works, we can expand branch-by-branch to build a new kind of university.
But we’re intentionally starting with something simple. Our learning is about continuous education, about solving the problem-of-the-day.
Burn
The second part of the Network School is about burning calories.
Longevity is important, but 20th century communities just aren’t physically set up to maximize physical fitness. Quite the contrary: the default mode of Western society is sedentary and sugary. Those who want to escape this need to roll their own nutrition and workout program, which takes time, money, and energy.
We’re changing that. I’ve teamed up with my friend @bryan_johnson to set up Blueprint-inspired food and fitness for the entire Network School community. Bryan will be on campus to set up the program, and then his designates will maintain it on a daily basis. Like many of you, I’ve been both fit and fat at various times, so this is a product I want to use myself.
Every member of the Network School gets a daily workout slot with a semi-personal trainer, much like a group fitness class. You run and lift in the morning at your chosen time, getting a proof-of-workout from your trainer. Your group holds you accountable for showing up. Then you get a box with your Blueprint-optimized healthy meals and head to work. The whole point is to provide willpower-as-a-service, where the community6 provides the discipline.
We’re starting with the basics of running, lifting, eating, and sleeping properly. The initial goal is to hit the limits of your genetics. But if all goes well, the biotech founders that come to the Network School will eventually help us all surpass our genetic limits, to live much longer than we otherwise would.
But again, we’re starting small! And so the “burning calories” part is about lifelong health and the workout-of-the-day.
Earn
The third part of the Network School is about earning currency.
We’ll have crypto prizes of the day for open source projects, AI content creation, and microtasks. There will be $1000 bounties every day for the duration of the program, similar to the various prizes I’ve posted on Twitter and Farcaster. And community members will post their own prizes.
Next, in keeping with the overall theme of self-improvement, we’ll have office hours to help with your job, your career, your visa status, and your funding. We’re much more invested in you than a typical college career center because our interests are aligned: the more you earn, and the stronger you are financially, the more you’ll eventually have to reinvest in the community.
Finally, we’ll have visitor hours with famous visiting technologists. As my friend Sriram noticed, when investors come through Singapore I typically do a podcast with them. Many will also visit the Network School to meet attendees, invest in them, or hire them. Others will give remote talks. And you can see the quality of visitors from the speakers in our conference and podcast.
So, earning is about constant career development and the prize-of-the-day.
Fun
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, of course. So the fourth part of the Network School is about fun.
This is the unstructured component. It’s most of what you’re here for. It’s just about assembling great people in one place: positive-sum people who believe in technological progress, internationalism, and capitalism. It’s your internet friends, coming from URL to IRL. Stanford introduced the concept of residential education, but this takes it to the next level.
In fact, our initial location is very similar to Stanford. It’s beautiful and sunny, and less than an hour from a major city (Singapore) with an international airport (Changi). That means you can be heads down during the week, head into the city on the weekends for fun, and get to just about anywhere in Asia within the same day. This is convenient for the >50% of the world that lives within the Valeriepieris circle.
We’ll do some group outings too, but most of the fun will be up to you.
WHO THE NETWORK SCHOOL IS FOR
Who is the Network School for? There are four lenses on this: demographical, ideological, professional, and personal.
Demographically
As mentioned, our focus is the dark talent. The more respect you have for legacy institutions, and the more respect they have for you, the less suitable you’ll be as an applicant.
So: the Network School is for Indian engineers and African founders, for makers from the Midwest and the Middle East, for Chinese liberals and Latin American libertarians, for Southeast Asia’s rising technologists and Europe’s remaining capitalists.
It’s for everyone who doesn’t feel part of the establishment. But it’s definitely not only for tech, because a community does not run on tech alone.
Ideologically
Ideologically, the Network School is for people who admire Western values, but who also recognize that Asia is in ascendance, and that the next world order is more properly centered around the Internet — around neutral code — than around either declining Western institutions or a rising Chinese state.
For example, the Network School is for those who understand that Bitcoin succeeds the Federal Reserve, that encryption is the only true protection against unreasonable search and seizure, that AI can deliver better opinions than any Delaware magistrate, and that democracy can be rejuvenated with cryptography. It is for those who believe in technology, harmony, internationalism, and capitalism. It’s for those who want Silicon Valley without San Francisco. And for those who want to found, fund, and find not just new companies and currencies — but new cities and new communities.
Professionally
Our ideal applicant is capable of remote work, or has enough savings to support themselves while at the Network School. For our initial cohort, we’re seeking three major groups of people in particular:
- Writers, artists, influencers, and filmmakers
- Trainers, athletes, coaches, and clinicians
- Founders, engineers, designers, and investors
These are, roughly, the demographics focused on learning, burning, and earning respectively. Of course, if you fall outside those categories but still think you have something to contribute, you should still apply to the Network School.
Personally
I should mention that the Network School is a “product” that I built for the young version of myself — the aspiring young engineer. This is the community I want to live in: a technocapitalist college town, a Stanford 2.0 that’s globally affordable and genuinely meritocratic.
So, I’ll be on campus full time. Bryan Johnson and I are supervising the setup of everything from bench press to French press. And we’ll eventually be recruiting faculty in the form of content creators, fitness influencers, and angel investors for the learn, burn, and earn portions of our program respectively. But all that in due time.
APPLYING TO THE NETWORK SCHOOL
Ok, so how do you apply to the Network School?
Just go to ns dot com and click "apply." We’ve set up a simple Luma page where you can apply in a few minutes. Then, if you pass review, we’ll send a second application where you pay rent. As mentioned, our monthly rent is $1000 (with roommates) and $2000 (solo). We also have daily and weekly rates too, but short-term visitors still need to apply.
The rent gets you an air-conditioned room on a beautiful island, with internet, gym, and access to all courses and community services. You’ll still need to handle your flights and pay for your food, but we think the overall package is extremely affordable. And so the Network School could be an amazing option for individuals or small teams looking to save money, get fit, and level up while living in paradise.
I’m looking forward to seeing you there! Just fill out the application at ns dot com, also linked in the tweet below.
SaaS annual reports/postponed weekend readings somehow led me to this gem: Bharoto Bhagyo by @tmkrishna. The intimacy of the setting, the politics of the lyrics, the perfection of the rendition, and the imperfections of the video somehow gave me clarity.
bit.ly/2Y9d7qr
Nitin Jayakrishnan retweeted
I have big news:
ECHOES OF INDIA IS COMING BACK.
Folks have been asking me for TWO YEARS, and I can finally say that this Monday - July 19th - Echoes of India: A History Podcast will return for its 3rd season! From Buddha to Ashoka, this is early India like you've never imagined.
Nitin Jayakrishnan retweeted
Replying to @dansiddiqui
@dansiddiqui 's death feels so personal to many of us even though we didn't know him personally. I think this is, in large part, because of his photos. Not just what he shot, but how he shot them. Thread 🧵
Nitin Jayakrishnan retweeted
The scientists who signed the Lancet letter saying "We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin" are starting to change their minds.
We forget even in 'B2B Enterprise SaaS' it's people making buying decisions. If you make it easy to try, easy to buy, easy to show off, the buyer becomes your best sales person. In SaaS, your job is just to facilitate the buying process, not to sell.
Woke up to 6-7 emails like this, from a happy client-CEO to prospect-CEOs. As @almitrakarnik, @ku1deep & @prakashramnath put it, a happy client is worth their weight in gold/marketing spend. #gopando
Nitin Jayakrishnan retweeted
An exceptionally imaginative composition, a lullaby to baby Shiva. The author beseeches the river Ganga resting in the matted crown of the lord to flow oh so gently, lest she wake the sleeping baby. :). Music by the extraordinary Malladi Suri Babu:
instagram.com/tv/CHcmyqKJhR_…



















