Oct 21 (Reuters) - AI business software company Zip said

on Monday it was valued at $2.2 billion in a funding round led

by technology investment firm BOND, marking an increase from its

$1.5 billion valuation in 2023.

Zip will use the $190 million raised in the Series D round

for research and development, expanding its suite of artificial

intelligence solutions, and supporting global expansion with a

focus on Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The funding underscores investors' growing interest in

companies looking to broaden out their AI capabilities.

Investors have continued to pour money into such startups even

as venture capital dealmaking remains slow.

Growing expectations of a soft landing and the Federal

Reserve's policy easing could also encourage more funding

rounds, analysts have said.

This funding round saw participation from new investors DST

Global, Adams Street, and Alkeon, along with existing backers Y

Combinator and CRV.

Zip was co-founded in 2020 by Rujul Zaparde and Lu Cheng and

offers companies an AI-powered platform to streamline their

procurement, which is the process of acquiring goods and

services necessary for business operations, and mitigate risk.

"Companies are wasting billions of dollars and countless

hours navigating byzantine approval processes, dealing with

security risks, and manually entering data," co-founder and CEO

Rujul Zaparde said in a statement.

Leading enterprises like Arm, Canva, Coinbase, Lyft ( LYFT )

and Reddit ( RDDT ) use Zip's platform, the company

said.

"Zip has already proven that we can fix that, saving our

customers billions of dollars and thousands of hours of time -

and our new round of funding will allow us to continue to

revolutionize business spending," Zaparde said.