Mandel AI, a Sofia-based startup building AI software for supply chain coordination, closed a €3.6 mn Seed round backed by Y Combinator, Category Ventures, Ritual Capital, e2vc, and other Silicon Valley investors and angels.
Nick Gospodinov, founder and CEO, said most supply chain systems were built to record what already happened, not to read and respond to what is happening now. He said sales has Gong, legal has Harvey, finance has Ramp. Mandel, he said, built AI for the teams keeping supply chains moving.
Every supply chain system was built to track what happened. None were built to read and act on what’s happening right now. Sales has Gong. Legal has Harvey. Finance has Ramp. We built the AI for the people who keep supply chains running
Nick Gospodinov, Founder and CEO
Founded in 2023, Mandel AI wants to replace the spreadsheets and long email threads still running much of industrial supply chain work.
The platform identifies disruptions and supplier updates through email-based AI. Old workflow, messy. This one goes straight at it.
According to the company, the system sits on top of existing email and ERP infrastructure and uses dedicated AI agents to read supplier messages, pull out critical data, reconcile documents such as purchase order confirmations and invoices, and take action on its own. It also follows up with suppliers, flags mismatches, and escalates issues based on rules set by each company.
The startup says one procurement manager using Mandel agents now handles work that used to require a whole team, reading, reconciling, and responding to hundreds of supplier emails each day, around the clock.
With the new funding, Mandel plans to position itself as the go-to API for international trade communication, supporting autonomous supply chain management for manufacturers and distributors across North America and Europe.
The company says it has already processed more than €920 mn in material spend for clients in aerospace, pharma, industrials, and other complex manufacturing sectors.
According to Beinsure analysts, that gives Mandel an early commercial signal in industries where procurement mistakes get expensive fast.
