AI supplier discovery, past the directories.
Describe what you need to source. Speya’s AI agents search 250+ sources, AI-vet every candidate against your criteria and hand you a ranked shortlist with the evidence attached.
What is supplier discovery?
Supplier discovery is how procurement and sourcing teams find and qualify suppliers who can make what they need. It covers the search for new suppliers, second sources and suppliers in new regions. Speya runs supplier discovery with AI agents: you describe the need in plain language, and the agents return an AI-vetted, ranked shortlist in minutes, every value linked to its source.
How supplier discovery usually runs.
Most teams still find suppliers the way they did ten years ago. Each route finds some suppliers and misses others.
Directories and marketplaces.
Directories list the suppliers who paid to be listed or filled in a profile. The supplier who fits your part and your certificates may never have registered.
Referrals and the suppliers you already know.
Colleagues and incumbents point to the names they know. That is how the same five suppliers end up on every shortlist.
Search engines and spreadsheets.
A category manager opens forty tabs, copies details into a spreadsheet and checks certificates one website at a time. A single category takes days, and the work starts again for the next one.
RFIs to a long list.
An RFI to fifty suppliers gets a handful of answers weeks later. The suppliers who reply are the ones with time. The ones with the capability may never answer.
How Speya finds suppliers.
01
Describe the need.
Write the part, material or service, the certificates you require, the volumes and the geography in plain language. Two lines are enough.
02
Agents search and AI-vet.
AI agents search 250+ sources in parallel: public registries, certificates, filings, supplier websites and trade data. Each capable supplier is AI-vetted against your criteria: certifications, financial health, ESG signals and sanctions.
03
A ranked shortlist with the evidence.
You get a tiered shortlist. Every row shows why the supplier is on it and links to its sources, so your team can check any value in one click. Send an RFI or RFQ to the shortlist from Speya.
What a supplier discovery shortlist looks like.
Supplier
Certification
Financials
ESG
Sanctions
Evidence
Supplier 01
Gnosjö, SE
ISO 9001
Strong
B
Clear
4 sources
Supplier 02
Brescia, IT
ISO 9001, 14001
Strong
A
Clear
6 sources
Supplier 03
Poznań, PL
ISO 9001
Watch
B
Clear
3 sources
Supplier 04
Porto, PT
ISO 9001, IATF 16949
Strong
B
Clear
5 sources
Supplier 05
Eindhoven, NL
ISO 9001
Strong
A
Clear
4 sources
Anonymised example for a machined aluminium housing. In Speya, every value links to the registry, certificate or filing it came from.
15x more qualified suppliers.
In a customer case, a procurement team searched one category with Speya and with the directory search they used before. Speya returned 15x more qualified suppliers for the same brief. Read the customer stories →
Supplier discovery platforms compared.
Directories, marketplaces, procurement suites and Speya each solve a different part of finding a supplier.
What you need
Directories (Thomasnet, Europages, Kompass)
Marketplaces (Alibaba, Global Sources)
Procurement suites (SAP Ariba, Coupa)
Speya
Finds suppliers who never registered
No
No
No
Yes, agents search open sources
Search in plain language
Keyword and category
Keyword and category
Their supplier network and your supplier base
Yes
AI-vetting against your criteria
No
Seller badges
Onboarding questionnaires
Yes, certifications, financials, ESG, sanctions
Evidence linked to the source
Profile text
Seller profile
Supplier-entered data
Every value
Best for
Known categories, regional lookups
Low-cost sourcing from Asia
Managing suppliers you already have
Finding and qualifying new suppliers
Speya works alongside your procurement suite. Suppliers you choose move into SAP Ariba, Coupa or JAGGAER through the normal onboarding route. More comparisons: Speya vs Thomasnet · Europages · Kompass · Scoutbee
When teams run supplier discovery.
A new category.
The team has never sourced it, and nobody knows the market. Speya maps who can make it before the first RFI.
A second source.
One supplier carries the category. Speya finds qualified alternatives so a single failure does not stop the line. Reduce single-source risk →
Nearshoring.
Production moves closer to home. Speya searches the target region and AI-vets suppliers against the same criteria as the incumbent. European supplier discovery →
Before a tender.
The team wants a long list that is wider than the incumbents. Speya builds it, and the RFI goes out from Speya.
Supplier discovery questions.
What is supplier discovery?
Supplier discovery is how procurement and sourcing teams find and qualify suppliers who can make what they need. Speya runs it with AI agents that search 250+ sources, AI-vet each supplier against your criteria and return a ranked shortlist with the evidence attached.
What is a supplier discovery platform?
A supplier discovery platform finds and qualifies new suppliers for a sourcing need. Speya is one: you describe the need in plain language, and AI agents search, AI-vet and rank suppliers, every value linked to its source.
How does AI supplier discovery work?
You describe the need in plain language. AI agents search public registries, certificates, filings, supplier websites and trade data in parallel. They AI-vet each capable supplier against your criteria and rank the results into tiers with sourced evidence.
How is supplier discovery different from strategic sourcing?
Strategic sourcing is the full process of choosing and contracting suppliers for a category. Supplier discovery is the first step of it: finding and qualifying the suppliers who can make what you need, before the RFI and the negotiation.
How long does supplier discovery take with Speya?
Minutes for a shortlist. Agents search every source in parallel and return an AI-vetted, tiered shortlist while you wait. Manual research for one category usually takes days.
Does Speya replace our procurement suite?
No. Speya is independent supplier intelligence that works alongside SAP Ariba, Coupa, JAGGAER and the others. It finds and qualifies new suppliers, and the suite manages them after onboarding.
Read more on supplier discovery.
Related pages: Supplier search and database · Supplier due diligence · Supplier intelligence
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