Anchor raises $5.8M to build AI-powered app for food distribution chains

US startup Anchr has received $5.8 million in funding to develop what it describes as the first native AI system for food distributors, targeting one of the most technologically intensive but underserved sectors of the global supply chain.

The funding round was funded by a16z Speedrun, Anterra Capital, Offline Ventures, Long Journey Ventures, and several industry leaders connected to OpenAI. The investment will support the company’s development of an integrated artificial intelligence platform designed to automate workflows across sales, procurement, inventory management, finance and logistics.

The company says that despite the scale of the food distribution industry, which moves hundreds of billions of dollars in perishable goods every year, much of its operational infrastructure still relies heavily on outdated technology and manual processes.

Food distributors act as an important link between producers and the tourism sector, ensuring that restaurants, supermarkets and food businesses receive fresh goods every day. Yet many companies still rely on text messages, spreadsheets and legacy business systems built decades ago.

Traditional Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems typically record historical transactions but lack the ability to analyze real-time situations or make operational decisions automatically.

This means that important tasks such as purchasing decisions, stock management and financial reconciliation often require a lot of manual work. For businesses operating at low single-digit profit margins, inefficiencies in these processes can have a significant impact on profitability.

Anchr’s founders believe that artificial intelligence can fundamentally change how these jobs work.

“The biggest opportunity to use AI is not in industries with modern infrastructure,” said Tzar Taraporvala, founder and CEO of Anchr.

“It’s buried deep in the core of the economy. Food distributors are managing millions of dollars in programs that were never designed to meet today’s challenges.”

Rather than replacing existing ERP platforms, the Anchr system acts as a layer on top of them, embedding AI-enabled digital assistants, or “AI teammates”, across multiple functional departments.

By integrating data across departments, the system allows information to flow seamlessly throughout the organization, eliminating the fragmented workflows that often plague supply chain businesses.

Work that previously required hours of manual intervention, such as installation orders received via email or text messages, can be automated by the platform, with contextual information shared across the business.

Early adopters of the Anchr platform are already reporting measurable efficiency gains.

One customer recovered nearly 40 percent of the daily work time for a team of eight sales representatives by automating the entry of emails and text messages.

One distributor was able to reduce senior inventory by $30,000 in one month, after using AI-generated purchasing information based on live demand signals.

In another example, a distributor used the system’s menu analysis capabilities to identify sales opportunities. By scraping restaurant menus and product catalogs, AI recommended more items to include in orders, increasing the average basket size by about $65 per order out of 4,000 annual orders.

For companies operating in low-income industries such as food distribution, even small operational improvements can translate into large financial gains.

The idea for Anchr came directly from the founders’ exposure to operational inefficiencies within the supply chain.

Co-founders Tzar Taraporvala and Smayan Mehra, who have worked together for more than two decades, began investigating gaps in supply chain technology after realizing that many business systems remained disconnected.

Their research was solidified when they worked with a Boston-based seafood distributor, spending several months observing the day-to-day workflow within the business.

They found that many work processes are still carried out manually. Orders were often entered into ERP systems in the morning, purchasing decisions depended on disconnected spreadsheets and finance teams often had to reconcile invoices across software platforms.

The founders concluded that the problem was not just technical, but structural.

“The pain was systematic, daily and expensive,” the company said.

Anchr’s first impulse is notable. During its 12-week participation in the Speedrun acceleration program, the startup reported booking seven people’s income.

Its customer base already includes both regional distributors and a publicly traded food distribution company that generates nearly $5 billion in annual revenue.

This rapid adoption reflects the growing need for automation in a sector where operational complexity continues to increase.

From ERP to ERA: the next evolution of business software

The company believes its technology represents the next stage in enterprise software development.

The founders describe the transition as moving from Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to what they call Enterprise Resource Automation (ERA).

“If the first era of business software digitized recordkeeping, we believe the next era will be automated,” said Smayan Mehra, founder and CEO.

Under this model, business software not only tracks data but continuously implements workflows and decision-making processes in real time.

Looking ahead, Anchr plans to extend automation capabilities to all aspects of distributor operations, eventually becoming a centralized system for coordinating decisions involving inventory, capital and logistics.

The founders believe that the technology works beyond food distribution, especially in industries where physical goods move through decentralized chains.

By integrating performance data across departments, the platform aims to create a new type of AI record system built around the actual work that organizations do.

Investors who support the company say that the possibility lies in the combination of the effect of coordinating operations.

“When it comes to sales, purchasing, inventory and budgeting, the whole business works differently,” said Troy Kirwin of a16z Speedrun.

“Anchr is building a native AI operating layer that transforms disparate processes into integrated workflows.”

Despite the level of global operations and distribution networks, many areas of the supply chain are still relatively technologically advanced compared to consumer and financial technologies.

Food distribution in particular presents a unique challenge because it involves high quantities of perishable goods, tight points and fast-moving operational decisions.

As artificial intelligence continues to move beyond manufacturing tools into full automation of operations, startups like Anchr are betting that some of the biggest benefits will come not from digital startups but from the neglected systems that keep the physical economy running.

For Anchr, the mission is clear: build an AI operating system that powers the next generation of supply chain operations.