Anchr raises $5.8m to automate food distribution

"On any given morning, the operations team at a mid-size food distributor might spend hours logging orders from restaurant clients, received by email, text, voicemail, and occasionally fax, into an ERP system that was probably designed before smartphones existed. They will chase late payments, reorder from suppliers based on intuition as much as data, and field calls from customers wondering where their delivery is."

"Anchr, a New York-based startup founded in 2025, is betting that AI agents can fix that. The company has raised $5.8 million in pre-seed funding to build what it describes as the first end-to-end AI operating system for independent food distributors, automating workflows across order intake, procurement, inventory management, customer support, and invoicing."

Anchr, a New York-based startup founded in 2025, addresses inefficiencies in America's food distribution industry by automating back-office operations through AI agents. The sector currently relies heavily on manual labor, with operations teams spending hours logging orders from multiple channels into outdated ERP systems, managing payments, and handling customer inquiries. Anchr's platform automates workflows across order intake, procurement, inventory management, customer support, and invoicing. The company raised $5.8 million in pre-seed funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Offline Ventures, Long Journey Ventures, and Anterra Capital. Co-CEOs Smayan Mehra and Tzar Taraporvala bring expertise from Apple, LiveRamp, and McKinsey, with experience in AI implementation across legacy industries.

Read at TNW | Startups-Technology