Financial risk management platform Pillar raises $20M seed in round led by a16z | TechCrunch

Last day to exhibit your breakthrough to 10,000+ tech leaders at Disrupt is on Oct 2. Book Exhibit Table Now. Disrupt doors open Oct. 13. Get your pass and bring someone with you at 50% off. REGISTER NOW. Pillar, a platform that helps commodity-driven businesses (like those in metals, food, and airline companies) manage financial risk, announced Tuesday a $20 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Others in the seed round include Crucible Capital, Gallery Ventures, and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. The company has raised $23 million to date. Pillar, founded in 2023, automates hedging processes for such businesses. Hedging is when a company places a trade that can offset or cancel out losses from other priced trades. Geopolitics has not been kind to the commodities market, which has seen much volatility in the past year. Harsha Ramesh, the company’s co-founder and CEO (founded alongside Chinmay Deshpande, the company’s CTO), said the company uses AI to ingest and parse data from client contracts, cash flows, inventories, ERP software, spreadsheets, and even WhatsApp messages to “continuously analyze exposure across commodities, FX, and freight.” It can then build and manage a