Procurement is still one of the most manual, spreadsheet-driven functions inside many enterprises. Zinit, an AI-native sourcing and procurement platform headquartered in Dubai, wants to change that — and just secured fresh capital to do it.
The company has raised an $8 million seed round at a $48 million valuation, led by AltaIR Capital with participation from early-stage investor DVC, known for backing several AI startups including Perplexity.
Seed capital to rewire procurement with AI
Zinit positions itself as a procurement-as-a-service platform, combining AI-assisted supplier discovery, real-time bidding, and multi-round negotiations into a single workflow. Its platform reportedly taps into a supplier network of more than 25 million vendors, using AI to match enterprises with the right suppliers and orchestrate competitive sourcing events.
According to the company, customers can:
- Cut procurement cycle times by up to 40–80%,
- Achieve 15–30% cost savings, and
- Benefit from a money-back guarantee if those savings don’t materialize.
The new funding will be used to enhance Zinit’s AI negotiation engine, further automate sourcing workflows, and accelerate expansion in markets where procurement is still heavily manual.
From Bidzaar lessons to a new playbook
Zinit was founded by Anton Buzdalin and Andrey Chernogorov, who previously co-founded Bidzaar, a procurement platform that reportedly managed $15 billion in GMV and built a large supplier network.
With Zinit, the founders are:
- Focusing on tail spend — categories that are often ignored by legacy suites like SAP Ariba or Oracle Procurement Cloud but represent meaningful leakage for large organizations.
- Designing a lightweight SaaS platform that doesn’t require long, complex IT implementations.
- Building a globally distributed team spanning five+ countries and more than ten nationalities, with leadership experience from firms like EY, GEP, Ivalua, Accenture, and McKinsey.
Why this matters for MENA procurement
Although much of Zinit’s early traction comes from India and other emerging markets, its corporate home in Dubai and focus on highly fragmented, regulation-heavy procurement ecosystems make it especially relevant for MENA.
For regional enterprises, the opportunity is clear:
- Digitize one of the last “analogue” functions: Many large organizations in the Gulf still run significant parts of their sourcing process via email and spreadsheets; AI-driven sourcing tools could unlock quick wins in both speed and transparency.
- Align with new regulatory norms: With stricter rules on payment timelines to SMEs and more scrutiny on procurement processes globally, transparent, auditable sourcing workflows are becoming a must-have.
- Leverage Dubai as a B2B SaaS hub: Zinit’s presence in the UAE reinforces the country’s role as a launchpad for enterprise SaaS targeting India, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa.
Editor’s Note — The Startups MENA Team
For years, procurement has sat in the “too messy to modernize” bucket inside many large organizations. Zinit’s fundraise shows that AI is finally making the function not just automated, but strategically interesting.For MENA founders, there’s a clear lesson: pick unglamorous but critical workflows — from procurement to logistics to compliance — and rebuild them with AI at the core. As Dubai continues to attract AI-native B2B startups, we expect more platforms like Zinit to use the UAE as a base to serve emerging markets worldwide.
– By The Startups MENA Editorial Desk
