A new startup named Gain is emerging from stealth today with $12 million in seed funding and a bold proposition: it’s not selling you another AI copilot, it’s letting you hire full-blown “AI Employees.” The company claims its autonomous workforce can manage entire end-to-end procurement workflows, a notoriously complex and messy part of any large enterprise.
The funding round was led by The Garage, with participation from BlueRed Partners and Bazan Group. Gain is targeting the tedious, high-volume, low-value purchasing known as “long-tail spend” that plagues industries like retail, CPG, and energy. While many small purchases slip through the cracks of human oversight, they collectively represent a huge operational drain.
Existing AI tools and copilots can automate repetitive tasks, but Gain argues they stop short of handling the unstructured, nuanced work that requires real judgment. This is where its AI Employees, with names like “Natalie and Bob” currently being tested at pilot customer Tempo Beer Industries, are designed to step in.
From Copilot to Colleague
Gain’s technology is pitched as an “autonomous workforce layer” that goes far beyond simple agentic capabilities. According to the company, these AI Employees can manage everything from category strategy and vendor sourcing to negotiations, contract execution, and exception management, all while integrating with a company’s existing ERP and productivity software.
The startup is also disrupting the typical enterprise software model. Instead of a per-seat SaaS license, Gain charges customers based on output, a pay-per-outcome approach that investor Eyal Radler of The Garage calls a key differentiator. “Gain is disrupting the traditional SaaS pay-per-seat model,” Radler said, noting it encourages early adoption and helps the company build proprietary data sets that create a “durable long-term edge.”
Pilots are already underway with global clients, including Israel’s largest brewer, Tempo Beer Industries, and energy firm Bazan Group, which is also a strategic investor. “The concept of an ‘AI employee’ managing the entire process from start to finish is particularly well-suited to our needs,” said Tempo CEO Daniel Beer. “It’s fascinating to see how AI Employees become part of the team.”
Of course, the term “AI Employee” immediately raises questions about job displacement. Gain’s CEO, Michael Gabay, who previously founded retail automation platform Trigo, frames it as augmentation. “Our AI Employees don’t replace jobs, they support teams by tackling work that otherwise goes undone and delivering real value,” Gabay said in a statement. He claims the AI can outperform even 20-year veterans on these specific tasks.
For now, Gain is betting that large companies are so bogged down by procurement complexity that they’re ready to hire a digital workforce to manage the parts of the job humans can’t, or won’t, do.
