AI software firm Zip valued at $2.2 bln in latest funding round
Adds industry context in paragraphs 2-4, company details in paragraph 8
Oct 21 (Reuters) -AI business software company Zip said on Monday it was valued at $2.2 billion in a funding round led by technology investment firm BOND, marking an increase from its $1.5 billion valuation in 2023.
Zip will use the $190 million raised in the Series D round for research and development, expanding its suite of artificial intelligence solutions, and supporting global expansion with a focus on Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
The funding underscores investors' growing interest in companies looking to broaden out their AI capabilities. Investors have continued to pour money into such startups even as venture capital dealmaking remains slow.
Growing expectations of a soft landing and the Federal Reserve's policy easing could also encourage more funding rounds, analysts have said.
This funding round saw participation from new investors DST Global, Adams Street, and Alkeon, along with existing backers Y Combinator and CRV.
Zip was co-founded in 2020 by Rujul Zaparde and Lu Cheng and offers companies an AI-powered platform to streamline their procurement, which is the process of acquiring goods and services necessary for business operations, and mitigate risk.
"Companies are wasting billions of dollars and countless hours navigating byzantine approval processes, dealing with security risks, and manually entering data," co-founder and CEO Rujul Zaparde said in a statement.
Leading enterprises like Arm, Canva, Coinbase COIN.O, Lyft LYFT.O and Reddit RDDT.N use Zip's platform, the company said.
"Zip has already proven that we can fix that, saving our customers billions of dollars and thousands of hours of time — and our new round of funding will allow us to continue to revolutionize business spending," Zaparde said.
Reporting by Prakhar Srivastava in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreya Biswas and Vijay Kishore
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