When Anthony Sardain began developing Cavela in 2023, an AI startup that helps brands automate supplier sourcing, he did not foresee that new tariffs would drive customers to become increasingly wary of manufacturing products in China.
“You don’t just walk into Vietnam and build up a supply chain,” Sardain told TechCrunch. “A lot of brands find one supplier, and they hang on for the rest of their life, because they really don’t want to lose it.”
That’s especially true for small and midsize companies that lack dedicated, global sourcing departments. Sardain claims that Cavela solves this problem through its AI agents, software tools that perform tasks autonomously and, in this case, act as a personal procurement team. These agents can find potential suppliers in over 40 countries and negotiate product specifications and pricing.
On Wednesday, Cavela announced that it raised $6.6 million in seed funding co-led by XYZ Venture Capital and Susa Ventures, with participation from Crossover Capital.
Finding suppliers and negotiating pricing with them is an inherently arcane, time-consuming process, and, according to Sardain, it was impossible to automate without generative AI.
“Making products involves a lot of text data, image data, diagrams, sketches, photos. This is the kind of data that didn’t play nice with technology up until AI,” Sardain said.
The latest LLM and image models allow brands to upload their complete product information, including specifications, blueprints, and all other details about the item they want produced, directly into Cavela’s AI agent. Based on those particulars, the agent identifies dozens of potential manufacturers and then instantly contacts those factories via WhatsApp, email, or text to understand production capacity and lead times and to collect pricing quotes.
Sardain claims the entire process is seamless, sparing brands from sending hundreds of messages back and forth. “They log in a couple of days later, and there are quotes in their inbox,” he said. Companies then typically ask a shortlist of potential suppliers to send product samples, which aids in selecting one or more factories for final production.
Cavela estimates that its customers not only substantially reduce the time spent searching for manufacturing partners, but they also save an average of 35% on production costs.
“If you get 100 quotes, you’re going to, by chance, land on a much lower price, and you’re also going to get a much better supplier in the process,” Sardain said.
Cavela’s customers, including fire-resistant apparel brand Western Welder Outfitting and men’s grooming brand The Longhairs, report that the startup helped them find manufacturers who produce goods at a significantly lower cost — even below pre-tariff pricing.
Sardain, a former data science lead for the data analysis startup Tierra, traces his knowledge of trade and sourcing back three generations within his family. He grew up living across Asian trade centers, including Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, and mainland China, which gave him a valuable understanding of how local manufacturers approach their work.
Cavela’s competitors include Alibaba, which connects brands to thousands of manufacturers in China, and Pietra, a brand operations startup that similarly helps businesses source goods with the help of AI.