{"id":105676,"title":"Whitespace: AI Operating System for Wholesale Distributors","tagline":"We help wholesale distributors grow 100x with AI agents that learn their business and do the work.","body":"Hey everyone 👋 We’re [Alex](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexyctung/) and [Leon](https://www.linkedin.com/in/linghong-yao/) - cofounders of [Whitespace](https://whitespacehq.ai/).\\\n\\\nWhitespace is the AI operating system for wholesale distributors. It connects to their systems to build a living model of their business, then deploys self-improving AI agents to do work like inventory planning, customer service, and order processing.\n\n**Problem**\n\nWholesale distribution is a $60 trillion global industry that touches one in every five dollars of global output. Yet it still runs largely manually. At a typical wholesale distributor, 30-50% of staff are dedicated to back-office tasks.\n\nThey spend their days on email, spreadsheets, and legacy systems, relying on tribal knowledge in their heads. Businesses cannot scale without hiring, and training a new hire takes \u003e6 months.\n\nA quote from one of our customers really brings this to life: “I have 6 reps typing 600 lines of orders from email into the ERP every day. Everyone is inside our ERP and spreadsheets, copying data from one place to another.”\n\n**Solution**\n\nWhitespace is the AI operating system for wholesale distributors. It connects to their systems to build a living model of their business, then deploys self-improving AI agents. \n\nWe’re already working with wholesale distributors in sectors including industrial supplies and building materials to set up agents for processes like:\n\n* **Inventory Planning.** Forecasts product demand, recommends reorder quantities against stock levels, and learns over time from actual demand.\n* **Customer Service.** Monitors inboxes for support queries, digs through systems to find answers, and responds with human oversight.\n* **Order Processing.** Monitors inboxes, enters orders into the ERP, flags exceptions to humans, and learns from their corrections.\n\n\u003chttps://youtu.be/4UxlKKXrgfI?si=EwGhX1LCTGyauuw6\u003e\n\n**Team**\n\nBoth our families ran wholesale distribution businesses, so we grew up seeing the inefficiencies and the opportunities firsthand.\n\n[Alex](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexyctung/) advised F500 manufacturers and distributors on tech/AI at BCG, took a startup from launch to 7-figure ARR in a year as its first non-engineering hire, and graduated top of his college at Cambridge.\n\n[Leon](https://www.linkedin.com/in/linghong-yao/) built AI products for F500 logistics distribution companies at InstaDeep, published first-author RL papers at tier-1 conferences, and previously founded an EdTech startup that served thousands of users worldwide.\n\nWe’ve been best friends for 12 years since high school. We’ve lived and worked together, and are now tackling a challenge close to our hearts.\n\n![uploaded image](/media/?type=post\u0026id=105676\u0026key=user_uploads/2335228/2d187648-e6e7-4b98-8101-407f5e7aefee)\n\n**Ask**\n\nWe would appreciate intros to wholesalers or distributors at [alex@whitespacehq.ai](mailto:alex@whitespacehq.ai)","slug":"RUS-whitespace-ai-operating-system-for-wholesale-distributors","created_at":"2026-07-16T14:54:16.399Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T13:27:22.203Z","total_vote_count":7,"url":"https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/RUS-whitespace-ai-operating-system-for-wholesale-distributors","share_image_url":"https://www.ycombinator.com/media/?type=post\u0026id=105676\u0026key=user_uploads/2335228/2d187648-e6e7-4b98-8101-407f5e7aefee","company":{"id":32617,"name":"Whitespace","slug":"whitespace","url":"https://whitespacehq.ai/","logo":"https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/d7ab9b902afa3fe0a37b3622022557a9cd82d082.png","batch":"Summer 2026","industry":"B2B","tags":["Artificial Intelligence","SaaS","B2B","Supply Chain"],"search_path":"https://bookface.ycombinator.com/company/32617"}}