Celebrating 5 Years: How Zip Sets the Pace for Procurement

Founded by Rujul Zaparde and Lu Cheng in 2020, Zip has risen rapidly to become one of the leading procurement platforms in just five years.

Zip is used by hundreds of the world's most innovate companies, across every stage of their business development.

Now, the company is celebrating its five years in business by looking towards future expansion. 

Five years of excellence

In 2020, co-founders Rujal Zaparde and Lu Cheng set up Zip as a means to bring better procurement orchestration to companies around the world.

What started in San Francisco has rapidly grown, with more offices in Toronto, London and New York.

Year by year, the platform has expanded, introducing new systems to help make procurement easier.

• In 2021, ZIP launched dynamic workflows, which had 25+ ERP, CLM, GRC integrations
• 2022 saw Procure-to-Pay making its debut on Zip
• In 2023, Zip introduced Sourcing and first-generation ZipAI
• 2024 oversaw the establishment of ZipAI Lab and the Integration Platform was built
• In 2025, Zip revolutionised the procurement platform, introducing 50+ AI agents 

Rujal and Lu said: "Five years ago, we started Zip with a belief: that the entirety of business spend should flow simply and clearly across a company.

"That procurement shouldn’t be a blocker to growth, but a driver of it. And that the software powering it should actually work for the people."

Powering global transformation

What started as a team of two now has more than 450 employees around the world. As well as its offices, Zip has groups of remote global teammates, with expansion very much a key focus.

As a product, Zip has become embedded across procurement teams, with mass adoption of the systems it has to offer.

"And we’ve seen a new level of adoption that’s virtually unheard of: we’ve never churned a single Intake-to-Pay customer in our company’s history," Rujal and Lu celebrate.

When Zip is delivering results across the board, it's easy to see why it would be a leading platform.

Zip has processed hundreds of billions in total purchasing request volume since its founding five years ago.

Zip customers have saved a total of US$4.4bn, with an average annual 3.6% reduction in spend.

Moreover, Zip costumers have seen 25% gains in productivity. 

The geopolitical landscape is becoming increasingly unstable, which means businesses around the world are facing more pressure to adapt.

Procurement teams are embedding more AI into their systems as a way to deal with real-time changes and to try to predict risk.

In addition, procurement leaders must be willing to transform the way their teams work, and adapt to new, smarter infrastructure in order to stay ahead.

Platforms like Zip are helping teams do that, with its revolutionary technology. 

Forward-thinking approach

Zip's flagship conference, ZipForward, brings together more than 750 procurement and finance leaders, with a variety of speakers examining the future of procurement. 

The conference allows companies to discuss emerging trends and understand how to remain ahead of the changing future of procurement.

It also delves in to how Zip is helping companies around the world modernise their procurement strategies and deliver real results across their business. 

Rujal and Lu add: “What started as a better intake form is now shaping the way global businesses operate.

"We’re moving faster, scaling smarter, and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, with our customers at the center of it all."

Zip aims to become the global standard procurement platform, helping every company access the tools they need to run with total efficiency. 

As part of the conference, attendees can explore advanced Zip features and receive training across procurement strategy. 

This year also marks the opening of Zip's new San Francisco headquarters, featuring 75,000 square feet. 

This development allows Zip to solidify itself as a dynamic, growing platform.

in just five years Zip has shown enormous progress and growth, not just for its platform but for businesses around the world.

With plans of expansion in place and a backlog of great successes, Zip's future in procurement is looking strong.