Through the years, Ardent Partners has attended every in-person Coupa Inspire, til now anyway (despite our plans, it was not in the cards for us this year). Nonetheless, Coupa Inspire continues to grow and arguably “inspire” a new generation of procurement leaders with attendance now in the thousands, albeit with plenty of consultants and solution providers in the mix. Coupa uses its event as a showcase for its top customers, its product roadmap, and not infrequently to announce acquisitions. Here’s a summary coupled with some instant analysis of the Cirtuo deal.
Autonomous Trade – CEO Keynote
With a full year now under her belt as CEO, Leagh Turner didn’t mince words, declaring that procurement is entering the “Age of Autonomous Trade,” a future where AI agents within Coupa’s network will dynamically and autonomously connect the needs of buyers and suppliers with minimal human intervention. Drawing on Coupa’s reported $8 trillion in spend insights gathered over 19 years from over 10 million suppliers and 3,200 customers, Turner likened the company’s ambition to JFK’s moon landing mission, stating, “We’re building the network that powers the future of global trade.”
The keynote highlighted three critical opportunities for businesses navigating today’s volatile environment:
- Mastering cost discipline without sacrificing growth,
- Leveraging data and AI for enhanced agility and resilience
- Freeing human capital from manual tasks to focus on strategic initiatives
AI
Not surprisingly, Turner and her team also announced a few new AI agents, under the brand name “NaVi” Coupa’s digital AI teammate, which was introduced last year. More broadly, NaVi is designed to guide users through complex workflows while learning from every interaction. New Agents announced are focused on analytics and the supply chain, while a Knowledge management gent was upgraded. Coupa also announced the ability to “Bring Your Own Agent” to the Coupa platform, primarily through its app store, one would assume.
Acquisition – Cirtuo
Coupa further signaled its commitment to an autonomous future with the acquisition of Cirtuo, a Croatian solution provider known for its category management solutions. Established in 2009 by Drasko Jelavic, Cirtuo began as a consultancy focused on training procurement professionals in developing category strategies. Over time, it evolved into a software company, developing digital category management tools that guide users through strategy creation processes. This acquisition aims to pull Cirtuo’s category management capabilities directly into Coupa’s Total Spend Management platform. Cirtuo’s clientele includes prominent global companies such as Walmart, Novartis, BT Sourced, Molson Coors, and Tata Steel Netherlands. These organizations have leveraged Cirtuo’s solutions to enhance their procurement strategies and operations.
Coupa + Cirtuo: Ardent’s Instant Analysis
Coupa has a history of integrating specialized companies to augment its BSM suite. Notable acquisitions include LLamasoft in 2020 for AI-powered supply chain design, Aquiire in 2018 for real-time supplier catalog search, and Spend360 in 2017 for deep learning in spend analytics. These acquisitions have, over time, been useful in enhancing Coupa’s platform.
The new management at Coupa has, apparently, continued to follow the acquisition strategy of its predecessors, of acquiring smaller more niche solutions in complementary areas and then work to fold them into the larger Coupa offering over time (Note: Llamasoft was a notable exception to this strategy). The strategy has been very beneficial to the company, allowing it to check boxes in RFPs and demonstrate “best-of-breed” capabilities in the sales process while occasionally surfacing powerful new capabilities within the larger suite (sometimes several years down the road).
The acquisition makes sense for Coupa, although I would have preferred to see them invest in the supplier management area first. Ardent’s 2025 research clearly shows that as the area of strongest interest in the market today. While category management as a process can be critical to the success of sourcing team, the technology has not emerged as its own “application” just yet. Since category management is so closely associated with sourcing, best-of-breed providers have had difficulty establishing the themselves as a standalone technology. Some of the larger S2P providers have a decided advantage when coupling their offering with an eSourcing and/or Spend Analytics offering. For example GEP, a market leader in Ardent Partners’ Strategic Sourcing Technology Advisor has a very strong category management offering.
Nonetheless, Cirtuo customers will benefit from a tighter integration to a top sourcing solution and becoming part of one of the biggest providers in the industry. Coupa customers will also benefit from enhanced category management capabilities, the question those looking at category management should be asking is “when?” That’s a question we’ll be asking too, so stay tuned.
For now, however, Coupa Inspire continues to make big waves in the market.
