Cavela lands $6.6M to help brands beat pre-tariff manufacturing costs

When Anthony Sardain began developing Cavela in 2023, an AI startup that helps brands automate supplier sourcing, he did not foresee that new tariffs would drive customers to become increasingly wary of manufacturing products in China.

“You don’t just walk into Vietnam and build up a supply chain,” Sardain told TechCrunch. “A lot of brands find one supplier, and they hang on for the rest of their life, because they really don’t want to lose it.”

That’s especially true for small and midsize companies that lack dedicated, global sourcing departments. Sardain claims that Cavela solves this problem through its AI agents, software tools that perform tasks autonomously and, in this case, act as a personal procurement team. These agents can find potential suppliers in over 40 countries and ne