News

Procural Has Secured $1.2 Million In Seed Investment

The Bahrain-based startup is set to scale and expand the reach of its innovative platform.

Published

3 years ago

March 2, 2023

procural has secured $1.2 million in seed investment

Procural is an AI-driven procurement service that matches B2B vendors and buyers using advanced algorithms and data. The platform offers a cloud-based infrastructure, customizable workflows, automated purchase orders, and real-time budget tracking.

Now, the Bahrain-based startup has secured a seed investment of 1.2 million USD from Flagship Holding and BenchMatrix in a bid to accelerate product development and boost market growth.

“We found a gap in the market and have developed a secure, scalable solution that can be accessed from anywhere. By streamlining the purchasing process, businesses can save time and money while ensuring compliance with their procurement policies. This investment is a validation of our platform’s credibility and potential, and we’re excited to work with Flagship Holding and BenchMatrix to take Procural to the next level,” says Uzair Usman, the chief executive and co-founder of Procural.

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With an extensive suite of data-driven analytical features, Procural helps businesses to manage procurement, track spending, and identify opportunities for cost savings and improvements in process efficiency. The platform helps to digitize the entire procurement process flow, from request to fulfilment, increasing their clients’ sourcing outreach.

With the new funding, Procural will expand its team, improve the platform’s feature set, and accelerate growth, helping the company to become the go-to procurement solution for businesses looking to streamline their workflows.

News

At I/O 2026, Sundar Pichai Concedes AI Must Deliver Real Value

Gemini 3.5, a personal agent called Spark, agentic shopping, and Android XR eyewear are all aimed at making AI feel useful, not just impressive.

Published

6 days ago

May 20, 2026

Nour Nasir

at io 2026 sundar pichai concedes ai must deliver real value

Google

Google’s annual I/O developer conference (I/O 2026) has recently become a status update on the same question: can the company turn its AI spending into products people use every day? This year, chief executive Sundar Pichai described Google as being in a phase of hyper progress, while conceding this is the part of the cycle where people want to see real value in the products they use on a day-to-day basis.

The strategy on display was to push agents — AI systems that act on a user’s behalf — into nearly every Google product at once. Search now has an “intelligent search box” that returns generated explainer videos alongside links. Gmail, Docs, YouTube and Maps are gaining their own agent layers, including a Docs Live feature that turns spoken instructions into drafted text with citations.

Two new models, Gemini 3.5 and a cheaper Gemini 3.5 Flash, arrived the same day. Google says 900 million people now use Gemini, and that more than 50 billion images have been generated with it. The pricing tier names are likely to confuse buyers: a new AI Ultra plan launches at $100 a month, while the older Gemini AI Ultra drops from $250 to $200.

The flashier announcements were Gemini Omni, a video generator pitched as a more realistic answer to OpenAI’s discontinued Sora 2, and Gemini Spark, a personal agent that handles recurring tasks across a user’s Google account. A new universal shopping cart lets agents complete purchases across multiple retailers from inside Google itself, placing the company between the merchant and the buyer, and also owning the checkout.

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Google also confirmed its Android XR eyewear, built with Samsung and frames from Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Audio-only glasses ship this autumn; a display-equipped version, which would superimpose live translations into the wearer’s field of view, is still in development. Both sets translate, however only the display version shows you the result.

What Pichai did not resolve is the bargain underneath all this. An agent is only useful to the degree it knows your calendar, your inbox, your shopping history and your physical surroundings. Google has now confirmed that, in time, the same context may carry advertising.