London-based retail technology startup Handshake has secured $3.2 million in funding to accelerate the development of its AI-powered platform designed to modernize how retailers, wholesalers, and suppliers negotiate and manage commercial agreements.
The funding round was led by Triple Point Ventures, with participation from Future Back Ventures by Bain & Company, Octopus Ventures, and a number of investors focused on retail and enterprise technology.
Founded in 2024, Handshake is developing an AI-native platform that brings retail buying, supplier negotiations, and commercial agreements into a single connected system, replacing fragmented workflows that often rely on spreadsheets, emails, and disconnected software tools.
Modernizing Retail’s Most Critical Processes
Despite significant digital transformation across the retail industry, many commercial buying teams still manage negotiations, pricing agreements, supplier terms, and promotional planning through manual processes.
This creates inefficiencies, limits visibility, and makes it difficult for retailers and suppliers to collaborate effectively in an increasingly competitive market.
Handshake aims to solve this challenge by creating a unified platform that centralizes commercial agreements and enables all stakeholders to manage negotiations, track commitments, and execute deals through a shared digital workflow.
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Bringing AI To Retail Buying
Led by CEO and co-founder Alex Lindsay, Handshake combines artificial intelligence with structured commercial data to help retail organizations improve decision-making, reduce administrative complexity, and create greater accountability across the supply chain.
The platform is designed to provide real-time visibility into commercial relationships, allowing teams to track negotiations, monitor performance, and ensure agreements are executed as intended.
By digitizing and automating traditionally manual processes, Handshake aims to help retailers and suppliers operate more efficiently while reducing costly errors and miscommunication.
Funding To Accelerate Growth
The newly raised capital will be used to accelerate product development, expand the company’s engineering and customer success teams, and strengthen partnerships with retailers, wholesalers, and suppliers.
As the company continues to scale, Handshake plans to further develop its AI capabilities and expand the platform’s role within retail organizations seeking greater operational efficiency and transparency.
Alex Lindsay, Co-Founder and CEO of Handshake, said:
“Technology has transformed almost every aspect of retail over the past decade, yet retail buying continues to rely heavily on spreadsheets, disconnected systems, and institutional memory. This creates significant operational complexity in an industry where margins are tight and every commercial decision matters.
We see a huge opportunity to build the AI-native operating system for retail buying, giving retailers and suppliers the visibility, structure, and accountability they need to work more effectively together.”
About Handshake
Handshake is a London-based retail technology company building an AI-powered platform for retailers, wholesalers, and suppliers. The company’s unified agreement management system helps businesses streamline negotiations, improve collaboration, increase transparency, and manage commercial relationships through a single data-driven workflow.
