Handshake, a London-based retail technology company, announced it has raised $3.2 million in funding to accelerate the growth of its AI-powered retail agreement platform. The round was led by Triple Point Ventures, with participation from Future Back Ventures by Bain & Company, Octopus Ventures, and other retail technology investors.
Founded in 2024, Handshake is building what it describes as the first AI-powered agreement platform designed specifically for retailers, wholesalers, and suppliers. The company aims to modernize the commercial agreements that underpin the global retail industry, replacing spreadsheets, email chains, siloed systems, and informal processes with a centralized platform for creating, tracking, and executing agreements.
Handshake noted that while retail has undergone significant digital transformation in recent years, many commercial relationships between retailers and suppliers continue to rely on fragmented workflows. The company estimates that fewer than 50% of suppliers currently have written agreements with the retailers they serve.
The platform provides a transparent system for managing contracts, rebates, activations, joint business plans, and other commercial arrangements. By consolidating these processes into a single platform, Handshake seeks to improve accountability, visibility, and operational efficiency for retail trading teams.
The company believes growing inflationary pressures, margin compression, increasingly complex supplier relationships, and heightened compliance requirements have created a significant opportunity for technology solutions that streamline retail buying operations.
Handshake plans to use the new capital to accelerate product development, expand its engineering and customer success teams, and deepen partnerships with major retailers and suppliers.
The company has already attracted customers such as Gopuff, whose merchandising teams manage hundreds of supplier relationships across multiple product categories.
Founded by Alex Lindsay and Peter Welch, Handshake combines retail operations expertise with enterprise software and AI product development experience. The company is focused on creating an AI-native operating system for retail buying that enables retailers and suppliers to collaborate more effectively and make better commercial decisions.
KEY QUOTES:
“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.”
Alex Lindsay, Co-Founder and CEO, Handshake
“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.”
Peter Welch, Co-Founder and CTO, Handshake
“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.”
Victor Angline, Director of Merchandising Strategy and Supplier Relations, Gopuff
“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.”
Cameron Ramsay, Director, Future Back Ventures by Bain & Company
