Fintech

Investing in Lio

Seema Amble, James da Costa, Eric Zhou, and Brian Roberts Posted March 5, 2026

Enterprise procurement remains one of the last bastions of manual back-office administration.

The world’s largest enterprises spend billions each year to manage their procurement functions – directing the flow of trillions of dollars in spend. And all of this occurs one email, one PDF, and one labor-intensive negotiation at a time. If you’ve ever had to procure anything within a large enterprise, you know this problem. Somehow, purchasing an office table results in hours of work, painful SAP data entry, and endless email ping-pong – and it still takes weeks. Business users hate the process: as organizations grow, their procurement headcount scales linearly with spend complexity. Procurement teams are buried in administrative work: just to keep up, companies are forced to either hire massive internal teams or outsource to BPOs. And despite constant cost pressure, companies still struggle to capture savings or negotiate effectively.

This problem persists because purchasing is one of the few workflows that touches nearly everyone in the enterprise – spanning a maze of systems, policies, and approvals. Every request, whether it’s a six-figure services engagement or basic office furniture, triggers rules, SOPs, exceptions, and handoffs across intake, sourcing, negotiation, fulfillment, invoicing, payment, and compliance.

Enter Lio.

Lio turns procurement from a necessary cost center into a source of strength, delivering a virtual procurement workforce for enterprises at machine speed.

When customers see the demo, they’re immediately taken aback by a level of automation that few believed software could achieve. Employees can now complete a purchase in just two clicks – bringing the simplicity of consumer buying into enterprise procurement. Lio’s agents triage requests, analyze quotes, compare suppliers, negotiate, source and onboard vendors, and execute purchases end-to-end across ERPs, systems of record, inboxes, contracts, and the open web.

The proof is in the purchase order. Lio collapses weeks of work into minutes. More than 100 clients globally, including Fortune 500 companies across industries, are already using Lio to manage billions in spend and replace outsourced labor with AI, resulting in:

  • 85 percent reduction in manual work for procurement buyers
  • 10 percent additional procurement savings
  • 95 percent adoption rates
  • 100 percent customer retention

Vlad, Lukas, and Till are technical and maniacal founders obsessed with rethinking procurement for an agent-first world. Vlad is an immigrant with a chip on his shoulder: he has been launching businesses since grade school after migrating from Kazakhstan. He met Lukas at Germany’s top technical university, who, at the time, was building a computer vision-based robot lawnmower. One of Lukas’s former managers told us how he outperformed entire teams of people when he was a part-time intern at Audi. Rounding out the trio is Till, who is not only a ninja at navigating enterprise, but also once topped a Computer Science final while in a hospital bed after an appendectomy.

We’re thrilled to partner with them and the rest of the Lio team as they scale this vision.

Welcome to the future of procurement.

About the Contributors
Want More a16z Fintech?

Commentary and analysis on recent news, and compelling trends in the fintech space.

Learn More
Recommended For You
Fintech

new Investing in Glimpse

Joe Schmidt and David Haber
Infra

new Investing in Deeptune

Marco Mascorro and Martin Casado
Growth

Investing in Mind Robotics

Sarah Wang
Growth

Investing in Nexthop AI

Raghu Raghuram, Shangda Xu, and Guido Appenzeller
Bio + Health

Investing in Ease

Daisy Wolf, Anish Acharya, and Eva Steinman

Want More Fintech?

Commentary and analysis on recent news, and compelling trends in the fintech space.

Sign Up On Substack

Views expressed in “posts” (including podcasts, videos, and social media) are those of the individual a16z personnel quoted therein and are not the views of a16z Capital Management, L.L.C. (“a16z”) or its respective affiliates. a16z Capital Management is an investment adviser registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Registration as an investment adviser does not imply any special skill or training. The posts are not directed to any investors or potential investors, and do not constitute an offer to sell — or a solicitation of an offer to buy — any securities, and may not be used or relied upon in evaluating the merits of any investment.

The contents in here — and available on any associated distribution platforms and any public a16z online social media accounts, platforms, and sites (collectively, “content distribution outlets”) — should not be construed as or relied upon in any manner as investment, legal, tax, or other advice. You should consult your own advisers as to legal, business, tax, and other related matters concerning any investment. Any projections, estimates, forecasts, targets, prospects and/or opinions expressed in these materials are subject to change without notice and may differ or be contrary to opinions expressed by others. Any charts provided here or on a16z content distribution outlets are for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon when making any investment decision. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources, including from portfolio companies of funds managed by a16z. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, a16z has not independently verified such information and makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation. In addition, posts may include third-party advertisements; a16z has not reviewed such advertisements and does not endorse any advertising content contained therein. All content speaks only as of the date indicated.

Under no circumstances should any posts or other information provided on this website — or on associated content distribution outlets — be construed as an offer soliciting the purchase or sale of any security or interest in any pooled investment vehicle sponsored, discussed, or mentioned by a16z personnel. Nor should it be construed as an offer to provide investment advisory services; an offer to invest in an a16z-managed pooled investment vehicle will be made separately and only by means of the confidential offering documents of the specific pooled investment vehicles — which should be read in their entirety, and only to those who, among other requirements, meet certain qualifications under federal securities laws. Such investors, defined as accredited investors and qualified purchasers, are generally deemed capable of evaluating the merits and risks of prospective investments and financial matters.

There can be no assurances that a16z’s investment objectives will be achieved or investment strategies will be successful. Any investment in a vehicle managed by a16z involves a high degree of risk including the risk that the entire amount invested is lost. Any investments or portfolio companies mentioned, referred to, or described are not representative of all investments in vehicles managed by a16z and there can be no assurance that the investments will be profitable or that other investments made in the future will have similar characteristics or results. A list of investments made by funds managed by a16z is available here: https://a16z.com/investments/. Past results of a16z’s investments, pooled investment vehicles, or investment strategies are not necessarily indicative of future results. Excluded from this list are investments (and certain publicly traded cryptocurrencies/ digital assets) for which the issuer has not provided permission for a16z to disclose publicly. As for its investments in any cryptocurrency or token project, a16z is acting in its own financial interest, not necessarily in the interests of other token holders. a16z has no special role in any of these projects or power over their management. a16z does not undertake to continue to have any involvement in these projects other than as an investor and token holder, and other token holders should not expect that it will or rely on it to have any particular involvement.

With respect to funds managed by a16z that are registered in Japan, a16z will provide to any member of the Japanese public a copy of such documents as are required to be made publicly available pursuant to Article 63 of the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act of Japan. Please contact compliance@a16z.com to request such documents.

For other site terms of use, please go here. Additional important information about a16z, including our Form ADV Part 2A Brochure, is available at the SEC’s website: http://www.adviserinfo.sec.gov.