Prashant Kushwah is the Founder & CEO of Dice. During this conversation, Prashant discusses AI Agents and automation, operating in the Indian market, and trips to the Himalayas! 

Dice is a corporate spend orchestration, digital commerce, and payments platform for enterprises. They envision democratising spend management with inclusive commerce and evolving into a unified source of truth that houses state-of-the-art financial products and services from their partners. 

 

 1. What is Dice’s mission? 

Dice is built as a collection of powerful, interconnected engines designed to create a unified, horizontal experience for managing different types of spend. Unlike traditional solutions that focus on solving specific problems - such as procure-to-pay, intake-to-pay, or sourcing - Dice takes a broader approach. 

Currently, B2B spending primarily involves software platforms that manage data or data flows. Our goal is to revolutionise this space by integrating digital payments, digital commerce, and vendor interactions into one cohesive experience. We hope to make it easy, efficient, and fully digital for corporates to manage all types of spend. We aim to deliver a seamless, real-time, and consumer-grade purchasing experience to B2B transactions, bringing the simplicity and efficiency of B2C commerce into the realm of B2B spending. 

Our platform comprises core engines that can be aggregated to create tailored solutions. These include a no-code engine for process flow management, a compliance engine for oversight and governance, an integration studio for seamless integrations, an auditing engine for conducting audits and creating comprehensive audit trails, and a settlements engine to streamline financial operations. This approach enables unmatched flexibility, allowing Dice to adapt to diverse transaction types, vendor relationships, and commerce or payment flows. Despite being an early-stage startup, Dice manages transactions worth over $8.9 billion for organisations.

 

2. What have been the most significant milestones in Dice’s journey so far? 

There are two major milestones that have reinforced our progress and validated the impact of our platform. 

The first milestone was reached in March of this year when we surpassed 500,000 active users on the platform. These users include employees and vendors who leverage our platform to manage various transactions and conduct digital interactions with corporates. 

The second milestone was achieved between October 2023 and October 2024, marking the first 12-month period during which the total spend managed on our platform exceeded $8.97 billion. This figure represents a significant milestone in the spend management space, reflecting a diverse distribution of industries, vendors, and transaction types. Even within the Indian market, managing transactions worth $​8.97​​​ billion (over ​75​​,000 crores INR) is a substantial accomplishment and underscores the scalability and relevance of our platform. 

 

3. What do you look for in the perfect customer? 

When we analyse corporate spending, we consider four primary drivers: people, processes, places, and production. Spending on people includes payroll, reimbursements, advances, cash management, and business travel. Processes drive expenses through operational workflows like sales, operations, and supply chains. Places generate costs based on a company’s geographic footprint, especially for businesses with distributed locations. Finally, production involves expenditures related to manufacturing, though we typically leave this area to specialised tools. 

 

Our ideal client profile focuses on organisations where complexity in people, processes, and places creates significant challenges that our platform can effectively address.

We target organisations with 500 or more employees to ensure a substantial user base and spend volume. India remains a key focus market for us because the combination of large workforces, distributed operations, and complex processes creates an ideal environment for our platform to demonstrate its value. 

 

4. What are the foundations of growing a great team? 

 I categorise team functions into three essential roles. First, leaders, who have the ability to take ownership of key tasks and guide them to success. Second, creators, individuals capable of building new solutions or processes from the ground up, taking end-to-end responsibility for creating and delivering something new. Finally, executors, who are the functional team members responsible for on-the-ground execution.  

 

I believe an ideal team balance consists of 10% leaders, 20% creators, and 70% executors. This ensures we have the right mix of leadership and creativity while maintaining a strong focus on execution.

We also approach hiring with a unique perspective. While leadership roles may require experience, for most other positions, we prioritise hiring freshers. By training them in our ecosystem and processes early in their careers, we ensure alignment with our organisational values and goals. This approach has proven successful over our five-year journey. Of our first 10 employees, nine have stayed with us, reflecting their commitment to the organisation and its vision. 

 

Ultimately, building a team is about more than just filling roles - it’s about finding individuals who will grow with us and contribute to making a meaningful impact on the ecosystem we’re working in.

 

 

5. How do you incorporate GenAI/advanced technologies, and what will be your next major digital innovation? 

We have been exploring the potential of Gen AI for the past year and a half, trying to understand how co-pilots and AI agents can transform the procurement and finance space. Initially, we experimented with bots to create customer support and acquisition tools, and then we moved toward integrating co-pilots across our solutions. Over the past three to six months, we’ve focused on AI agents, which we believe represent the future of Gen AI.  

 

Our internal understanding is that procurement is heading toward a vertically integrated, agent-based structure, and this transformation will extend across procurement and finance functions.

 

Our strategy for leveraging Gen AI is two-pronged. First, we are developing piecemeal agentic solutions to enhance specific processes. These agents are being integrated into our existing platform, enabling us to improve current workflows and bring in intelligence where it can add value. The second part of our strategy involves building vertical, end-to-end platforms. This month, we’re launching PayableGPT.ai, a fully autonomous platform that manages the entire payables process with 65 agents working together. On December 15, we’ll launch PurchaseGPT.ai, a platform designed to manage all aspects of procurement. Both platforms are built entirely around agentic architecture, eliminating the need for manual coding and making processes simpler, more adaptable, and intuitive. 

 

Our approach also aims to simplify traditional processes by reducing the need for constant customisation and implementation cycles, which are often a barrier for companies adopting new technology.

 

Overall, our work with Gen AI focuses on delivering practical, transformative solutions that simplify and improve the procurement and finance functions. Through both incremental AI integrations and comprehensive, agent-driven platforms, we aim to make procurement processes more intelligent, efficient, and user-friendly. 

 

6. What’s the vision for Dice? What does great look like in three to five years’ time? 

Our goal is to cross $100 billion in terms of spend managed on the platform over the next three years. Achieving this milestone will also reflect our success in expanding geographically. As we discussed earlier, we have two distribution models: one in collaboration with banks and the other with companies to create platforms. We have already begun onboarding customers in the MENA region and the US. If, in three years, we are able to diversify our revenue streams outside of the Indian market while processing $100 billion worth of transactions, this will represent a short-term success for us. 

Long-term success, however, will be measured by the proportion of digital commerce within the $100 billion of transactions. Currently, less than $500 million of these transactions are digital, with the rest occurring through offline merchants via our Merchant Portal. Our aim is to significantly increase the share of digital commerce - whether through catalog-based purchases, horizontal marketplaces, or vertical marketplaces - so that more transactions occur end-to-end on our platform. Specifically, we want to grow the percentage of digital commerce within our platform from 5-7% today to 25% in five years. This shift would enable us to generate commission, transaction, and payment revenues. 

 

We define success in two ways: first, the penetration we've achieved in terms of transactions onboarded to the platform, and second, the monetisation of those transactions.

 

7. What are you doing that is good for the planet? 

Recently, we've started working on an interesting project: we’ve created an AI agent that suggests alternative products or vendors to companies. The agent helps by recommending options that provide the same product or service, but with a better economic impact. In some cases, it even suggests alternatives with a lower carbon footprint. The goal is to assess every purchase companies make and determine whether there are viable alternatives - whether it’s sourcing locally, reducing pollution, or finding more efficient products. While some purchases may be essential with no real alternative, or when vendors aren’t available in the region (necessitating extra costs for transportation, for example), our focus is on providing these alternate suggestions. Ultimately, we aim to make a positive environmental impact, even in small ways, by offering companies greener options wherever possible. 

 

 

INSTANT INSPIRATION 

1. What is your favourite book/blog? 

In terms of books, two of my favorites are  The Almanack of Naval Ravikant and The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. I also enjoy A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking and Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. I have a deep interest in philosophy and physics, so a lot of my reading revolves around these subjects. 

 

2. Who is your favourite inspirational leader? 

The first is Admiral Yi Sun-sin, a Korean naval commander who prevailed against all odds during the Japanese invasions of Korea. Despite having far fewer resources, he led his forces to victory and made significant contributions to history that we continue to benefit from today.  

In today's world, I’m inspired by Sridhar Vembu, the founder of Zoho, a company that has built a unique approach to hiring and developing talent. His commitment to empowering people from disadvantaged backgrounds is something I truly admire. Much of my inspiration for building a company comes from his approach — enabling people to work and grow, no matter their background. 

 

 

 3. What is your favourite piece of technology? 

At this moment, my favorite technology is AI agents, both horizontal and vertical platforms being developed around them. I’m fascinated by these innovations and how they are reshaping the way we understand and interact with technology. This is where most of my technological interest lies right now. 

 

 4. What is your favourite cocktail or guilty pleasure? 

 Whiskey Sour.  

 

 5. What is your favourite way to celebrate success? 

Whenever we celebrated a success, we would usually plan a weekend trip, taking three or four days to go to the Himalayas, relax, and enjoy the peaceful surroundings. My way of celebrating success is all about unwinding for a couple of days and then jumping back into reality. 

  

 KEY TAKEAWAYS 

1. B2B Spending Revolution: The B2B spend management space is evolving rapidly, with companies aiming to make the procurement and finance processes as seamless and consumer-friendly as B2C transactions. 
2. Platform Flexibility: Modern spend management platforms are moving towards flexibility and scalability. Companies are looking for platforms that provide a broad, unified experience, rather than focusing on isolated solutions for specific functions like procure-to-pay.  
3. Significance of AI in Procurement: AI and GenAI are becoming integral in procurement and finance functions. AI-driven agents are being used to automate and improve tasks like negotiation, pricing discovery, vendor discovery, and category management, transforming how businesses operate in these areas. 
4. AI Agents and Automation: Platforms are evolving towards agent-based systems that streamline workflows, enhance efficiency, and reduce the need for constant manual customisation. This shift is reducing costs and increasing the scalability of operations. 
5. Complexity Drives Innovation: Companies with complex workflows—especially those with distributed operations or intricate processes (such as those in BFSI, logistics, and retail), are the prime candidates for advanced spend management solutions. 
6. The Importance of Digital Commerce: There is a clear trend towards increasing the digitalisation of B2B transactions. Companies are aiming to grow the share of digital commerce within their platforms, shifting from traditional offline purchases to end-to-end digital transactions.  
7. Sustainability and Greener Procurement: AI agents are helping businesses source products with lower carbon footprints and suggesting local or more efficient sourcing options. This aligns with the growing demand for businesses to reduce their environmental impact while maintaining efficiency and cost-effectiveness. 

 

 

About Dice 

Dice is a corporate spend orchestration, digital commerce, and payments platform for enterprises. They envision democratising spend management with inclusive commerce and evolving into a unified source of truth that houses state-of-the-art financial products and services from their partners. 

 

 

 

About ProcureTechSTARS  

ProcureTechSTARS are the digital procurement CEOs and Founders who are transforming procurement and the enterprise. In an open conversation with these leaders, Lance Younger discusses the highs and lows of building the future, the challenges they’ve faced, their perspective on the latest developments, and what motivates them.