As tariffs drive up costs, Cavela AI secures $6.6M to help e-commerce brands pivot production fast
Cavela combines AI, on-the-ground experts, and a global network of vetted factories to handle the entire sourcing process from quote to order delivery.
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 20, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Cavela announced today that it raised $6.6M in seed funding. The round was co-led by Susa Ventures (early investors in Robinhood and Flexport) and XYZ Venture Capital (early investors in Anduril), with participation from Crossover Ventures. Other investors include Go Global Ventures and Propel Venture Partners. Tariffs are hurting American brands by cutting off existing sourcing routes and squeezing margins. Without large, dedicated procurement teams, brands take months to find reliable suppliers, face limited options, and see their costs continue to rise. Cavela makes it easy for e-commerce brands to source from the best suppliers around the world. By combining AI with on-the-ground experts and a network of 200,000+ global, vetted suppliers, Cavela handles the entire sourcing process from quote to delivery. Finding a reliable, high-quality supplier used to take months; with Cavela, it takes days. Founded in San Francisco by McGill, Harvard, and MIT alumni with family roots in global trade, the company is backed by the operators and investors behind companies like Notion, Stripe, Flexport, and Anduril.
Traditional product sourcing is broken
Finding a reliable supplier can take more than six months and thousands of hours of manual work. Brands must draft detailed product specifications, search manufacturer directories full of middlemen and low-quality factories, and exchange hundreds of messages across WhatsApp, WeChat, and email just to obtain basic price quotes. Samples and orders often fail to meet requirements, leaving brands to arrange third-party on-site inspections abroad and manage freight forwarding from factory to warehouse. Unlike large brands like Uniqlo and H&M, e-commerce brands typically have no dedicated procurement teams. As a result, sourcing takes longer, costs more, and many end up overpaying suppliers that deliver poor quality.
How Cavela uses AI to source physical products
Cavela uses AI agents, a proprietary database of 200,000+ vetted suppliers, and human sourcing experts to handle the entire procurement process. First, an AI agent turns a brand's product specifications into a complete product brief, and matches those details against Cavela's supplier network — which includes factories behind Carhartt, Ralph Lauren, Patagonia — to identify the best-fit manufacturers. Then, AI agents, partnering with Cavela's human sourcing experts, coordinate with manufacturers to handle everything from collecting quotes to warehouse delivery. Cavela handles on-site QA that verifies quality of samples and purchase orders, and has optimized freight-forwarding to handle shipments. Cavela removes thousands of hours spent on sourcing, while finding higher quality factories at production costs that are often 35%+ lower.
Tariffs have exposed a fragile system
Tariffs have further exposed the cracks in global manufacturing. As costs rise, brands risk going out of business unless they can quickly pivot their supply chains. Yet sparse information, opaque pricing, and time-consuming, manual workflows make it nearly impossible to shift production — whether back to the United States or to alternative regions abroad. Cavela manages the entire sourcing process end-to-end — from product definition and quoting to sampling, QA, production, and final delivery to warehouse — making it fast and effortless for brands to establish new, tariff-resilient supply chains and spin up new product lines. "We were told there were only two manufacturers who could make our product. Cavela found us three times as many options" Anastasia Alt, Founder of Yana. "Tariffs have put e-commerce in an existential crisis. Cavela makes premium manufacturing accessible to all brands," said Ross Fubini, XYZ Venture Capital. "This is the only team we've seen that combines a deep understanding of global manufacturing and AI to solve this problem".
Cavela is the other side of Shopify
Shopify made it easy for anyone to sell products online — but before you can sell, you have to make. Until now, this part of the process remained entirely manual. Cavela fills a crucial gap in the e-commerce chain by automating the last offline process: manufacturing. It represents the next evolution of e-commerce infrastructure. Platforms like Shopify digitized storefronts, but production itself has remained slow, manual, and fragmented. Cavela brings that missing layer online, giving brands instant access to global manufacturing with the same ease as launching an online store. "Our unit costs are actually lower now than they were before tariffs" Jordan Beaman, Founder of Western Welder Outfitting. "If they had beat our pricing by 10–15% that would have been good. They beat it by 65%. Having sourcing, communication and pricing all together makes it easy for record keeping and reference. It's a game changer" Lindsay Barto, Founder of The Longhairs (from Shark Tank).
Cavela is now available globally
Cavela is now widely available for growing e-commerce brands. Companies can get quotes, compare suppliers within days, test samples, and place bulk orders all in one place. Get started at Cavela.com
About Cavela
Cavela manages the sourcing process from quote to delivery. By combining AI with on-the-ground expertise, the company helps brands access premium suppliers worldwide, cut thousands of hours of sourcing time, and reduce production costs by an average of 35%. Cavela is based in San Francisco, CA.
Press Contact
Malini Srikrishna ([email protected])
SOURCE Cavela
Share this article