Pillar, a platform that helps commodity-driven businesses (metals, food, airlines, etc.) manage financial risk, announced on Tuesday a $20 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Other investors 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 the hedging process for these companies. Hedging is when a company enters into a trade that allows it to offset or offset losses from other price trades. Geopolitics is not favorable for commodity markets, which have seen significant volatility over the past year.
Harsha Ramesh, co-founder and CEO of the company (which he co-founded with CTO Chinmay Deshpande), said the company uses AI to ingest and parse data from customer contracts, cash flow, inventory, ERP software, spreadsheets and even WhatsApp messages to “continuously analyze commodity, currency and cargo exposures.”
It can then build and manage hedge portfolios for clients and automatically adjust positions based on “market conditions, volatility, and the client's risk tolerance,” Ramesh continued. The platform executes trades and continuously monitors risks and exposures, transforming hedging from “a static, periodic decision to a continuous, autonomous system,” Ramesh said.
Pillar's customers include Shibuya Sakura Kogyo, a trading company that buys and sells metals and other products. recyclable materials company Sigma Recycle; United Metal Solutions Group also recycles and trades metals.
Ramesh previously worked as a macro trader managing large derivatives trading books and working with some of the world's largest companies seeking to hedge exchange rate and interest rate exposures, he said. “I also spent time in a medium-sized physical business in import and export,” he recalled.
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“What was striking was that while sophisticated institutions had access to tools, infrastructure and talent, the actual producers, importers and manufacturers who drive global trade had little access to these,” he said. “Risk management was treated as a luxury, even though it was a necessity.”
Pillar wants to provide small and medium-sized businesses with sophisticated, institutional-grade tools. “Our goal is to make hedging as accessible and ubiquitous as payment and accounting software,” he said.
Image credits: Harsha Ramesh and Chinmay Deshpande
The business also includes traditional desks at large banks and commodity risk platforms such as Topaz and RadarRadar.
Ramesh said that at Pillar, humans still have some form of information, making “approvals, oversight, and strategic decisions.” Humans also assist in more “complex situations,” such as large trades where human teams mix judgment with machine execution.