In a significant milestone, Handshake, the AI-powered retail agreement platform recently announced a $3.2 million funding round led by Triple Point Ventures, with participation from Future Back Ventures by Bain & Company, Octopus Ventures, and other retail technology investors.
When walking down a grocery aisle, what appears to be a simple product display is actually the complex culmination of hundreds of commercial agreements spanning shelf space, promotional activations, and rebates.
Yet, while digital transformation has revolutionized front-facing commerce, the foundational business agreements underpinning the global $18.8 trillion retail industry still rest precariously on legacy infrastructure. Trade processes remain heavily reliant on fragmented spreadsheets, disjointed email chains, siloed enterprise systems, and informal arrangements. Strikingly, fewer than 50% of suppliers currently maintain formal, written agreements with the retailers they supply.
The Cost of Fragmented Retail Buying
The commercial infrastructure of modern retail remains surprisingly primitive, heavily reliant on disconnected systems and manual tracking:
- Siloed Infrastructure: Trade processes depend on fragmented spreadsheets, disjointed email chains, and isolated enterprise legacy software.
- Lack of Formalization: Fewer than 50% of suppliers currently maintain formal, written agreements with the retailers they supply, often falling back on informal “handshake” deals.
- Macroeconomic Pressures: Retailers face severe headwinds driven by persistent inflation, cost volatility, compressed margins, and intensifying regulatory compliance.
Industry Endorsements and Leadership Vision
Enterprise adoption highlights the immediate market demand for structured, AI-native B2B workflows.
Victor Angline, Director of Merchandising Strategy and Supplier Relations at Gopuff, says:ย “At Gopuff, our merchandising teams oversee hundreds of supplier partnerships across multiple categories, so it’s important we have the right tools to manage all the details. We chose Handshake to empower our merchants with a platform that enables seamless management of contracts, agreements, and joint business plans. They have been amazing partners, and we look forward to continued collaboration.”ย
“Technology has transformed almost every corner of retail over the past decade, but retail buying still runs largely on spreadsheets, disconnected systems, and anecdotal memory. That creates enormous operational complexity in an industry where margins are tight and every commercial decision matters. We believe there’s a huge opportunity to build the AI-native operating system for retail buying, one that gives retailers and suppliers the visibility, structure, and accountability they need to work better together.”ย says Alex Lindsay, co-founder and CEO of Handshake.
Peter Welch, co-founder and CTO of Handshake, adds:ย “Retail buying is a brutally tough job, and the sector faces structural headwinds that show no signs of easing. The commercial teams at the heart of it deserve better tools, visibility, and outcomes, which is why we built Handshake. Handshake is a fundamental reimagining of how retailers and suppliers work together, and there’s never been a better moment to bring this to the sector. We believe this category is one of the largest untapped opportunities in retail.”
Cameron Ramsay, Director at Future Back Ventures by Bain & Company stated “Handshake is transforming how retailers and suppliers work together, and its team combines the technical depth and category expertise this problem demands. This is a category ripe for disruption in the age of AI. Handshake’s platform offers a genuinely credible path forward on a problem the entire sector has wrestled with for years. And our Bain experience only reinforced our conviction in both the team and opportunity. Its potential to unlock value across retailers, wholesalers, and suppliers is substantial.”
