Global sourcing has long depended on fragmented networks, middlemen, spreadsheets, and instant messaging apps. For many U.S. brands searching for reliable manufacturers across Asia, finding the right supplier can take months of outreach, vetting, negotiation, and back-and-forth coordination.
Saudara AI believes artificial intelligence can change that.
The startup, founded by Edward Haryono and Jennifer Prasetyo, is building what it describes as an AI-native sourcing broker that connects U.S. brands with vetted Asian manufacturers across industries, including apparel, textiles, home goods, furniture, hardware, footwear, and bags. By combining AI agents with human oversight, the company aims to compress sourcing timelines from months into days while reducing reliance on traditional sourcing intermediaries that often take between 5% and 15% commissions.
That vision recently earned Saudara AI one of its biggest milestones to date: acceptance into Y Combinator’s Spring 2026 batch, joining a network known for backing companies such as Airbnb and DoorDash.
For the co-founders, the company represents more than a business opportunity. It is also deeply connected to family history and personal experience inside manufacturing.
Both Haryono and Prasetyo come from multi-generational entrepreneurial families rooted in Indonesia’s manufacturing sector. Prasetyo grew up around factories in East Java operated by her family across multiple generations, producing yarn for international buyers. Haryono, meanwhile, spent years working around supply chain operations and studying how global sourcing shaped commerce.
The pair said they had discussed entrepreneurship for years before deciding to launch Saudara AI.
Before starting the company, they experimented with multiple ideas, including AI developer tools and e-commerce businesses. Yet the concept of modernizing sourcing relationships continued to resurface.
Prasetyo had often observed how sourcing agents based in Hong Kong or the United States would bring orders to her family’s factory, sometimes discovering suppliers through little more than chance connections. She believed there was an opportunity to build a more scalable and transparent system around those relationships.
At the same time, broader shifts in global trade were creating new sourcing demand. Haryono noted that changing tariff dynamics and supply chain disruptions prompted an increasing number of businesses to look beyond traditional manufacturing hubs.
As inbound requests for Indonesian factory connections grew, advances in generative AI also changed what the founders believed was operationally possible.
According to the company, AI agents now help automate supplier discovery, qualification, sample tracking, and ongoing factory management tasks that historically required large teams and extensive manual coordination. Humans remain involved where relationship-building and trust are essential, but automation allows the platform to scale far more efficiently than traditional sourcing broker models.
The company describes its long-term ambition as building a global manufacturing infrastructure platform, beginning with Indonesia and eventually expanding across broader Asian manufacturing networks.
Indonesia, in particular, represents a strategic focus for the founders. Despite being the world’s fourth most populous country, the nation remains underrepresented in global sourcing conversations compared to manufacturing giants such as China and Vietnam.
Saudara AI hopes to help elevate Indonesian manufacturing capabilities while also giving international brands access to a broader and more diversified supplier base.
The founders also bring technical and operational backgrounds that complement the company’s mission.
Before launching Saudara AI, Prasetyo worked as an engineer at Microsoft and Meta, where she gained experience building large-scale systems. At Saudara AI, she now leads engineering efforts focused on supplier intelligence systems, AI agents, and data infrastructure designed to turn relationship-driven sourcing processes traditionally into scalable workflows.
Haryono brings more than six years of product management experience, with a focus on cross-functional product development and supply chain operations. His background includes work involving sourcing and manufacturing systems, as well as a growing interest in how generative AI can improve procurement and operational efficiency.
Industry observers have increasingly pointed to sourcing and procurement as sectors ripe for AI-driven transformation. While generative AI has largely captured public attention through consumer-facing applications, many startups are now racing to apply the technology to logistics, operations, and industrial workflows where inefficiencies remain deeply entrenched.
Saudara AI is positioning itself within that shift by targeting one of the most manual areas of global commerce: cross-border manufacturing relationships.
The company argues that sourcing today still relies heavily on disconnected communication channels and opaque broker networks, even as brands demand faster production timelines and more resilient supply chains.
By blending AI automation with human relationship management, Saudara AI believes it can modernize how brands and manufacturers connect while preserving the trust-based dynamics that remain critical to global manufacturing.
For now, the company’s entry into Y Combinator marks an early but significant validation point. As the startup accelerator’s Spring 2026 batch concludes, Saudara AI joins a growing wave of startups seeking to apply AI beyond consumer software and into the infrastructure that powers global trade itself.
