Lio (formerly askLio) GTM brain

Lio sells an AI procurement workforce to large enterprises seeking to automate direct and indirect purchasing.

category

Agentic procurement automation

market profile

  • text: Enterprise procurement remains a labor-intensive chain of supplier research, approvals, negotiation and purchase execution across multiple systems.
  • text: AI-native vendors are entering procurement alongside existing sourcing and purchasing suites.

personas

  • title: Chief Procurement Officer
    pains:
    • Operational requests consume capacity needed for supplier strategy and savings
    • Global procurement teams struggle to standardize execution while handling local exceptions
  • title: Head of Procurement Operations
    pains:
    • Buyers move requests across ERP, supplier records, email and approvals
    • Shared service or BPO capacity adds cost to routine purchases
  • title: Procurement digital transformation leader
    pains:
    • Employees find buying processes difficult to navigate
    • New automation must integrate with existing systems and change how teams actually work

icp

  • text: Fortune 500 and other large global enterprises with complex direct and indirect procurement organizations.
  • text: Industrial and manufacturing enterprises with raw materials, supplier networks and multiple buying teams, such as tesa and BASF Coatings.

message pillars

  • text: Coordinate specialized agents across direct and indirect purchasing.
  • text: Execute operational procurement including exceptions.
  • text: Pair technology with hands-on operating model transformation.

objections

  • objection: Our procurement exceptions are too complex to automate.
    response: Pilot representative requests, supplier negotiations and approval exceptions, with explicit human decision boundaries.
  • objection: We already have procurement and ERP systems.
    response: Map required integrations, permissions and process handoffs before agreeing deployment scope.
  • objection: Software alone will not change employee behavior.
    response: Include operating model design, requester experience and adoption measures in the deployment plan.

competitors

  • name: Nibble
    why: Automates supplier negotiation and tail-spend workflows for procurement teams.
  • name: Omnea
    why: Offers AI-assisted procurement and supplier management for enterprise buyers.
  • name: Didero
    why: Builds procurement agents for enterprise purchasing workflows.

keywords

  • AI procurement agents
  • enterprise procurement automation
  • autonomous sourcing
  • supplier negotiation AI
  • direct procurement automation
  • procurement operating model transformation

voice

  • Ambitious and transformation-focused
  • Practitioner-led procurement language
  • Enterprise-oriented

signals

  • text: A CPO is consolidating shared services or redesigning the procurement operating model.
  • text: A manufacturer is digitizing raw-material buying or supplier management across regions.

stack

  • SAP
  • Coupa
  • Ariba
  • Microsoft Teams

pricing

model: unknown

motion

sales_led

channels

  • LinkedIn
  • Procurement events
  • Customer stories
  • Press

confidence

high

Founders

  • name: Vlad Keil
    title: Founder
    role: Founder
    bio: Vlad is the Founder and CEO of Lio (S23). He had a profitable startup by the age of 22. Vladi also co-founded the AI startup "Gabriel" back in 2021, that ended up partnering with the German FBI. In his last position he consulted enterprises on procurement. He's now on a mission to make procurement managers superhuman.
  • name: Lukas Heinzmann
    title: Founder
    role: Founder
    bio: Lukas is an AI Engineer with a Master's from TUM in AI/ML. He joined as one of the first employees of a startup acquired by Audi to bring AI/ML into mobile Apps. As the technical lead for the myAudi app, he tripled its user base and improved its star rating. Following his entrepreneurial he left this job. He co-founded Gabriel AI to prevent telephone fraud using advanced AI algorithms and is now starting his second venture "Lio".
  • name: Till Wagner
    title: Founder
    role: Founder
    bio: Till is co-founder and COO of Lio. Gained experiences in web & app design and product-building at various based AI-startups, one based in SF. Operational & analytic experiences from projects at Deloitte's biggest German client. Academic excellence: Best in class Bachelor, Master, Scholarships. While working at SAP he failed with buying equipment for his successor with their software, which inspired him to create solutions that people can actually comprehend.

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