The Estonian-founded startup, Pactum, an AI-based platform that helps companies to automate personalised commercial negotiations, is to supply its technology to Walmart, the US retail giant.
Pactum’s artificial intelligence system enables partners to negotiate more valuable contracts for all parties while reducing costs for customers, the company said in a statement.
The startup’s “deal with Walmart is set for a pilot project with some of the company’s long tail vendors,” the company noted. “Revisiting those partnerships is key for large companies like Walmart, who may have so many contracts with various suppliers that it is hard for individual people to reach out and renegotiate, should circumstances change.”
“We’re thrilled to be working with Walmart,” Martin Rand, the CEO of Pactum, said. “It’s encouraging that, as a leader in cutting edge technological innovation for efficiencies across its enterprise workflows, they see the value in what Pactum offers.”
Vendors prefer to negotiate with the same bot again
According to the startup, inefficient contracting has been estimated to cause firms to lose between 17% to 40% of the value on a given deal, depending on circumstances. “Increasing the efficiency of millions of longtail supplier contracts represents a USD200-500 billion opportunity for Fortune Global 500 companies jointly.”
In addition to retail, Pactum is also negotiating deals in real estate, online marketplaces and online advertising. The company said it has previously helped a daily deals company “increase vendor commission by 27% and 82% of those vendors said they would prefer to negotiate with that same bot again”.
Pactum is an AI-based system that helps global companies autonomously offer personalised, commercial negotiations on a massive scale. It is based in Mountain View, CA, with engineering and operations in Estonia. The startup is backed by founders of Skype and TransferWise and built by luminaries from Skype, Starship and Estonia’s e-residency programme.
Cover: Pactum’s founders Kristjan Korjus, Martin Rand and Kaspar Korjus.
