Freqens raises $3M to bring transparency to indirect purchases
With global inflation on the rise, companies and more specifically corporate buyers, are finding it challenging to anticipate and manage cost fluctuations that directly impact their margins and profits.
We are excited to partner with Freqens, a Paris-based fintech company dedicated to transforming B2B purchasing practices through a cost benchmarking solution for indirect expenses (opex). By reducing the information asymmetry that often favors sellers in B2B transactions, Freqens enables buyers to instantly spot overvalued expenses and uncover significant savings opportunities.
Founded by a seasoned team of serial entrepreneurs and former scale-up executives, including CEO Maxime Liebens (former CSO at MakiPeople, JobTeaser), COO Richard Gozlan (former CEO of Cleanio, sold to Rocket Internet, COO of Agricool and Gopuff), and CTO Alexandre Barreira (former CPTO of Ornikar), Freqens’s technology uses real-time market data and peer benchmarking to help companies achieve a simple yet crucial goal: buying at the right price, every time.
In France, its home market, Freqens has already attracted several clients, including Electra, Polène, MemoBank, Homa Games, and Safran.ai, and has received support from purchasing experts such as Laurence Laroche (La Poste) and Florence Baiget (Veolia).
Martin Londe, CFO of Homa Games emphaises:
“We love this one-stop-shop for real-time cost overcharge detection and future spending assessment. This tool has definitely impacted our negotiation approach.”
Maxime Liebens, Co-founder and CEO of Freqens explains.
“What surprises us the most is how many companies buy quickly and inefficiently. SMEs and mid-sized companies lack the resources to benchmark their conditions, and in large enterprises, negotiation activities have been deprioritized in favor of a business partner role, where buyers must satisfy all stakeholders. The digitalization of procurement has also contributed to this shift, prioritizing execution speed and control over cost performance. We’re witnessing large-scale waste, whereas, in light of sales uncertainty, cost control is more crucial than ever.”
Richard Gozlan, Co-founder and COO, adds:
“We enable companies to instantly know the right price to pay and to benchmark complex categories — a task humanly impossible to achieve in a matter of seconds. Unlike recently emerged solutions, particularly in SaaS Management, which promote outsourcing and lack neutrality as they must satisfy both buyers and sellers, we remain an independent, trusted third party. I am convinced that the key to securing the best terms is to maintain and nurture a direct supplier relationship. Our analyses reveal price variations of up to 45% for comparable scopes.”
Freqens’ foundation is built on an experienced team with a track record of building high-growth companies. This team identified significant optimization opportunities in how companies evaluate their purchasing performance against the market, noting that the benchmarking process remains largely manual, time-consuming, and heavily dependent on individual skills and internal resources. This is why venture capital firms like Seedcamp and family offices such as Motier and Kima invested in this funding round.
On why we partnered with Freqens, our Partner Sia Houchangnia highlights:
“We were very impressed by Max, Alex, and Richard — especially their individual backgrounds and their complementarity as a founding team. We’ve seen several companies in the procurement/fintech space, which are often complex replacement suites. Freqens’ highly targeted approach, beyond its impact, avoids disrupting an already crowded procurement tool ecosystem, bringing maximum value and a very quick deployment capability.”
We are excited to participate in Freqens’ $3 million pre-seed funding, alongside Kima Ventures, Zebox, Motier Ventures, Financière Saint James, and prestigious business angels, including Mark Ransford, Alexandre Berriche, and Roxanne Varza.
With the new funding, the company aims to grow the team, invest in the development of its innovative product, and support its growth in the French and international markets.
For more information, visit freqens.com.
