Coupa just announced it has signed a definitive agreement to buy Scoutbee, a platform that uses AI to help companies discover, validate, and onboard suppliers. In its announcement, Coupa described how combining Scoutbee’s “AI-powered search, rich supplier network and dataset, and collaboration tools” with its network of over 10 million buyers and suppliers would create “greater transparency and efficiency in supplier discovery, onboarding, and transactions.”
Scoutbee, founded in 2015, has raised around $76 million in funding across multiple rounds, including a $60 million Series B in 2020. (That brought its total raised to $76 million). In 2024, Scoutbee reportedly generated about $15 million in revenue across some 150 customers. Latka The firm claims partnerships with large enterprises such as Walmart and Unilever, which are mentioned as founding brands of Scoutbee’s network. With that scale, Scoutbee brings real buyer-supplier matching experience, not merely experimental AI ideas.
On Coupa’s side, the platform has long centered on managing and analyzing spend, controlling procurement workflows, and driving compliance across buying activity. Coupa’s public profile notes that it handles vast amounts of anonymized transactional data and is used by major companies around the world. The argument in this acquisition is that Scoutbee’s “front end” of supplier discovery strengthens Coupa’s capabilities so that procurement more intelligently finds who to spend with.
In the official release, Salvatore Lombardo, Coupa’s Chief Product & Technology Officer, said: “Coupa and Scoutbee share a fundamental belief that better data leads to better AI, better decisions, and ultimately, a better world through more resilient supply chains.” He added that the acquisition would let them “deliver a truly effortless buyer-supplier matching experience.” Gregor Stühler, Scoutbee’s cofounder and CEO, said: “Joining Coupa allows us to bring our mission to a global stage, and provide an exceptionally data-rich and comprehensive buyer-supplier network and B2B marketplace at scale.”
The integration is expected to start once the deal closes, which Coupa has said should be within its next fiscal quarter. From then onward, workflow embedding will be key: Scoutbee’s AI search should appear inside Coupa’s sourcing, contracts, and supplier management flows so that users don’t have to exit one system to use the other. In its communications, Coupa says Scoutbee’s data can supply as much as 80 percent of the information needed to build or enrich supplier profiles, reducing manual overhead in onboarding. The companies already share customers such as Walmart and Unilever, which could ease migration and consolidation.
In recent years, the procurement software market has been steadily moving toward embedding AI throughout every stage of the process. Some of Coupa’s competitors are making moves that mirror parts of this strategy. SAP, for instance, is rolling out enhancements to its Joule copilot and introducing AI agents intended to assist procurement tasks. In May 2025, SAP unveiled updates to its Joule tools, claiming that these would help procurement professionals anticipate supplier needs, evaluate performance, and streamline complex sourcing decisions. SAP has also emphasized that generative AI features and “copilot” interactions are being integrated into its procurement suite, aiming to boost user productivity by “up to 30 percent.” Meanwhile, analysts such as The Hackett Group observe that nearly half of organizations today are using embedded generative AI features in procurement platforms, for instance, classification engines in Coupa or SAP, and that many procurement teams expect Gen AI to reshape their work in the next few years. Other players like JAGGAER are actively promoting their AI roadmaps, with plans for “AI co-pilots” to assist in sourcing and execution.
For Coupa, several challenges lie ahead. Merging Scoutbee’s AI models, data pipelines, search engines, and supplier records into Coupa’s existing architecture is nontrivial. Differences in data formats, security models, and validation protocols must be reconciled. Because AI recommendations depend heavily on input quality, the combined system must guard against stale or incorrect data. In procurement, trust in supplier evaluation is essential, and procurement leaders will likely demand transparency into how supplier suggestions are ranked or filtered. Suppliers will also need incentive to keep their profiles updated; if profile completeness or visibility depends on user effort, adoption may lag.
The success of the move depends on how well customers respond in practice. If Coupa can embed Scoutbee’s discovery in a way that feels natural and trustworthy, procurement users may accept it as a reliable tool rather than an optional add-on. The deeper question is whether the combined platform will deliver new matches that procurement teams would not have otherwise found, and whether those matches translate into cost, risk, or resilience benefits.
