A three-month-old Shanghai startup wants AI agents to bridge factories and buyers

TRANS·MISSION (创拾觅深) is a Shanghai startup founded in August 2026 that sells Chinese exporters AI “digital employees”. The main one is a sales agent that, according to the company, looks for buyers in tenders, expansion projects, industry directories and trade-fair lists, writes prospecting emails in more than 40 languages and follows up on replies around the clock, in the buyer’s time zone. Leads are graded A, B or C, and A-grade ones go through a human background check before reaching the factory’s sales staff. The stated focus is industrial goods: power and energy equipment, robotics and automation, farm machinery, telecoms and electronics, new and building materials, and industrial equipment and parts.

The company also serves the other side. On an English-language site for foreign buyers, it promises to find and verify the right factory: consultations are free, and it charges only when it introduces a factory. According to the site, the team checks quality systems, certifications and capacity, including on site, before recommending anyone. The case the company publicises is a New York buyer: 86 factories searched and one Suzhou manufacturer recommended.

The ambition goes further. In a profile published on October 9 by PE星球, a Chinese private-equity news site, the company is described as also working on a purchasing agent for foreign companies that would search, filter and verify suppliers. With a sales agent on the factory side and a purchasing agent on the buyer side, the idea is for negotiation to start “agent to agent”. The same piece says the company is a member of Oracle’s AI centre in Shanghai and notes that this does not mean Oracle invested.

There is also an Iberian link. On September 30 the government of Extremadura said its second mission to China ended with six agreements, including a memorandum of understanding with Shanghai Transmission Technology to explore business and industrial opportunities in the region, especially in components and advanced mobility. According to the company, it is a regional procurement adviser to Extremadura and a procurement adviser to the Portugal–China Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCILC), engaged to find, screen and introduce Chinese manufacturers. The demo on its site shows an email in Portuguese scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Lisbon time.

The founder, Song Tiancheng (宋天成, Timothy Song), studied mathematics at the University of Manchester and holds a master’s in accounting and finance from Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, according to the company’s site. He worked at trading firm SUMEC (苏美达), where he headed North America for the international machinery and equipment division and took part in equipment purchasing for projects such as Merck’s investment in Wuxi, Zhongwei’s (中伟股份) joint venture in Morocco and AESC’s investment in the United States. Co-founder William Zhu is managing director of Huangpu River Capital, and international vice president Abasov Taptyg is a mechanical engineer who graduated from University College London, according to the site.

CSP take: TRANS·MISSION is a bet, not a proven case. At three months old, it has a product, a team with international procurement experience and a memorandum with a European government; it has not disclosed customer names, revenue or a funding round. For Brazilian importers, the agent-to-agent idea is worth watching, and the free consultation can serve as a test, without skipping your own checks. This reading is ours, not TRANS·MISSION’s.