Inc. Magazine
NYC-based Keychain raised $30M in Series B to build its AI-powered KeychainOS, aimed at helping CPG manufacturers cut waste, predict bottlenecks, and improve planning. Backed by firms like Wellington and BoxGroup plus giants like General Mills and Hershey, Keychain now supports 20,000+ brands and 25,000 manufacturers.
Another AI Startup Just Scored $30 Million, This Time in the World of CPG Manufacturing
Author: Brian Contreras
On Tuesday, New York City-based Keychain, a firm that offers an online platform where packaged goods and private-label companies can find manufacturing partners, announced that it had raised $30 million in a new Series B. “It’s time for us to increase our investment, particularly in engineering, product design, and analytics,” says CEO and co-founder Oisin Hanrahan.
Most of the incoming capital will go toward building out an AI-driven operating system called KeychainOS, which the firm says will help manufacturers “reduce waste, predict bottlenecks, and improve real-time planning.”
The Series B was led by the investment firms Wellington Management and BoxGroup, with additional backing from other investors. In addition to standard institutional investment firms, the company’s previous fundraising rounds have been backed by consumer packaged goods (CPG) mainstays like General Mills and Hershey.
Keychain supports over 20,000 brands and retail customers, Hanrahan says, with more than 25,000 manufacturers in its system and revenue “well into the millions.” The company, which counts 7-Eleven and Whole Foods among its clientele, raised an $18 million seed round in late 2023 and announced a $15 million Series A last fall, then another $5 million in February.
“Before we did this B, we had not even spent all of the seed round,” Hanrahan tells Inc. “So all of the A is still on the balance sheet, and I think we’d invested, like, three-quarters of the seed.”
Keychain is the latest company to woo investors by going all-in on artificial intelligence. The AI sector hoovered up 71 percent of all American venture capital investment in Q1 2025, according to research firm PitchBook.
“It would not have been possible to build any of this company, at this level of investment, without huge amounts of AI,” Hanrahan says.
That momentum probably won’t last forever. Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI and the de facto poster child of the ongoing generative AI boom, said on Thursday that he thinks the sector is in a bubble—even if the underlying technology is here to stay and will be “a huge net win for the economy.”
At least for now, though, it’s a boom time for anyone who can convince investors they have a good use-case for AI models.
Keychain’s focus was initially on search and discovery, using AI to help connect food and beverage brands with third-party manufacturing partners, Hanrahan says.
The company has since expanded into other manufactured product categories, such as health supplements and beauty products, and is now focused on building out the AI-based KeychainOS system for manufacturers’ enterprise resource planning (ERP) business processes.
Tom Hermes, Whole Foods Market’s vice president of sourcing and product development, said in a statement shared by Keychain: “The tool allows our teams to better identify prospective manufacturers who can meet the requirements of our product roadmap.”
AI isn’t the only tailwind Keychain is taking advantage of. Last winter, Hanrahan told Inc. that the specter of Trump’s tariffs—which have since reshaped the global trade landscape—had led to increased activity and search volume on the platform as American companies sought out domestic manufacturing partners.
Back in 2012, Hanrahan co-founded the on-demand home services startup Handy. It was later acquired by the Angie’s List parent company, Angi Homeservices, with Hanrahan eventually becoming the CEO of that publicly traded conglomerate.
“I took a little break after twelve years in home services,” Hanrahan recalls of his 2022 departure from Angi. He and Handy co-founder Umang Dua, who was previously CRO at Angi, started experimenting with a few different ideas for new businesses, and within a month or two had settled on building a software platform for CPG manufacturing.
Credits: TCA, LLC.