Spend Matters Future 5 2023 – Why we chose Mithra.Ai

Spend Matters is delighted to announce the 2023 roster for our ‘Future 5’ list. For the fifth year in a row, our analysts have highlighted five start-ups that excite them the most. This year, the five companies that have proven themselves as potential future trend setters are akirolabs, Calculum, dSilo, Mithra and ORO Labs.

To warrant such attention, these vendors must have a product that is ideally 2 to 5 years old, is used by more than five customers and displays an innovative application of technology. Moreover, these vendors must have less than $10 million in revenue and our analysts must find them both sustainable and growing with a clear momentum. In this series of articles, we explain what these vendors offer, why they are likely to become future members of our ’50 Procurement Providers to Watch’ and ’50 Procurement Providers to Know’ lists and what challenges they may face.

In no order of preference, today we are sharing the reasoning behind our selection of Mithra.Ai.

What it does

Mithra is an AI-based spend analytics solution founded in 2021 that develops fit-for-purpose data models for each of its clients and emphasizes user-friendliness.

Mithra’s founders created it to reduce the cognitive load for procurement teams and help them quickly identify and pursue more hidden opportunities by combining a human-led AI algorithm with dynamic taxonomy classification and an automatic synergy finder (to compare datasets). Mithra believes that accurate and correctly classified spend data, driven by fit-for-purpose AI models, will not only show more hidden opportunities but will increase the trust level of users.

Read our interview with Mithra here.

Why we chose it

Mithra is a young company in the heat of development. We viewed the solution several times, with about three months in-between, and noticeable improvements were made in that time period. While it may not currently offer many advanced features, its basic spend capture, visibility and mapping is impressive and user-friendly.

Mithra has managed to integrate advanced AI features into its solution while still allowing users control over their data and maintaining a friendly UX. For example, Mithra or the user can pre-determine spend categories which can be adjusted live as needed. Additionally, users can approve or revise the ML model’s suggestions easily and Mithra’s taxonomy builder allows users to build their own custom taxonomies via a drag-and-drop method.

Importantly, while young, Mithra already has an eye to the criticality of actionable insights. Already, it has developed analysis to show price variance category benchmarking, supplier spend criticality, tail spend and suggests opportunities. As a UX bonus, the opportunities can be downloaded via SharePoint into a PowerPoint and Mithra automatically updates the PowerPoint to reflect the opportunities for easy sharing.

Any threats or challenges ahead?

Because Mithra is such a young provider, it currently lacks the additional modules offered by more established spend analytics providers. In other words, it does not have the ESG, risk or consulting supplemental capabilities that many spend analytics solutions offer, nor does it offer supplemental supplier management or contract management capabilities. Associated features such as supplier profiles, spend carbon footprint and document management are missing. While it has solid basics, it may have trouble breaking into a market filled with spend analytics providers that wear multiple hats (especially regarding ESG and the US and European regulation requirements).

Similarly, working within the tool across departments or individuals can be clunky. For example, while there is an option for opportunity tracking, that option is user-specific and manual; there is not yet an automatic workflow where an opportunity is sent from one user to another; additional departments cannot be contacted in the system; all approval workflows must be handled externally. While not deal breakers, the UX-friendly data analysis may be somewhat undercut by the lack of friendly UX in these areas.

Look out for more featured coverage of the Spend Matters Future 5 next week.

And if you’d like to know more about our selection process, listen to our recorded webinar.

Reach out if you like to know more about becoming a Future 5.

If you are thinking about buying procurement technology, try consulting Spend Matters TechMatch for a rapid shortlist.