Company:Forethought Technologies

From HandWiki
Short description: American artificial intelligence company
Forethought Technologies
TypePrivate
IndustryArtificial intelligence
Founded2017
FounderDeon Nicholas, Sami Ghoche, Colm Doyle
HeadquartersSan Francisco, California, U.S.
Websiteforethought.ai

Forethought Technologies, also known as Forethought, is an American artificial intelligence company headquartered in San Francisco, California. The company develops software to automate customer service operations.[1][2][3]

History

Forethought was founded in 2017 by Deon Nicholas, Sami Ghoche, and Colm Doyle.[4][5] The company publicly launched at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2018, where it won the Startup Battlefield competition.

In 2023, Forethought released a generative AI tool constrained to a customer’s own support data,[6][7] and later launched Autoflows, an agentic reasoning engine that allows support teams to specify resolution outcomes in natural language.[8] In March 2025, the company released Forethought Voice, a voice product developed in partnership with Cartesia.[9][10]

As of 2026, Forethought’s platform processes more than one billion customer interactions per month, with customers including Airtable, Grammarly, Datadog, and Upwork.[3]

Funding

In December 2018, Forethought raised a $9 million Series A round led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA), with participation from K9 Ventures and Village Global.[11] In October 2020, the company raised $17 million in a Series B round from Sound Ventures, NEA, and Operator Collective.[12][13]

In December 2021, Forethought raised a $65 million Series C round, which brought the company’s total funding to $92 million. The round was led by Steadfast Capital Ventures, with participation from NEA, Sound Ventures, and K9 Ventures, along with investments from Baron Davis, Robert Downey Jr., and Gwyneth Paltrow.[1][3][14][15]

In May 2025, Forethought raised a $25 million Series D round led by Blue Cloud Ventures, which brought the company’s total funding to $115 million.[16][17]

In March 2026, Forethought was acquired by Zendesk.[3] Forethought has continued to operate as a subsidiary of Zendesk.[3][18]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 staff, CNBC com (2022-11-07). "Forethought: 2022 Top Startups for the Enterprise" (in en). https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/07/forethought-cnbc-top-startups-for-the-enterprise.html. 
  2. ↑ Capital, TrueBridge. "Next Billion-Dollar Startups: Digital Transformation Is Here To Stay" (in en). https://www.forbes.com/sites/truebridge/2021/10/12/next-billion-dollar-startups-digital-transformation-is-here-to-stay/. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Bort, Julie (2026-03-11). "Zendesk acquires agentic customer service startup Forethought" (in en-US). https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/11/zendesk-acquires-agentic-customer-service-startup-forethought/. 
  4. ↑ "Forethought" (in en). https://www.forbes.com/profile/forethought/. 
  5. ↑ Kumar, Manu. "What you didn't know about TechCrunch Disrupt Winner Forethought AI" (in en-US). https://www.k9ventures.com/blog/2018/09/08/what-you-didnt-know-about-techcrunch-disrupt-winner-forethought-ai/. 
  6. ↑ Dillet, Romain (2018-09-07). "And the winner of Startup Battlefield at Disrupt SF 2018 is… Forethought" (in en-US). https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/07/forethought-wins-startup-battlefield-at-disrupt-sf-2018/. 
  7. ↑ "Forethought sees better customer support via OpenAI-powered SupportGPT" (in en-US). VentureBeat. 2023-03-08. https://venturebeat.com/ai/forethought-sees-better-customer-support-via-openai-powered-supportgpt/. 
  8. ↑ Miller, Ron (2023-09-21). "New Forethought tool lets you build workflows with natural language" (in en-US). https://techcrunch.com/2023/09/21/new-forethought-tool-lets-you-build-workflows-with-natural-language/. 
  9. ↑ "DTC | Leading investments in the enterprise." (in en). https://www.delltechnologiescapital.com/. 
  10. ↑ "Forethought CEO Deon Nicholas talks bringing AI to customer support" (in en). 2025-03-26. https://www.cnbc.com/video/2025/03/26/forethought-ceo-deon-nicholas-talks-bringing-ai-to-customer-support.html. 
  11. ↑ Miller, Ron (2018-12-04). "Forethought scores $9M Series A in wake of Battlefield win" (in en-US). https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/04/forethought-snares-9m-series-a-in-wake-of-battlefield-win/. 
  12. ↑ Konrad, Alex. "This Startup Raised $17 Million From Investors Like Ashton Kutcher And Diddy To Take On Customer Service With AI" (in en). https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2020/10/28/forethought-raises-17-million-from-investors-like-ashton-kutcher-and-diddy/. 
  13. ↑ Whiting, Rick. "The 10 Hottest AI Startups Of 2020 | CRN". https://www.crn.com/slide-shows/cloud/the-10-hottest-ai-startups-of-2020. 
  14. ↑ Miller, Ron (2021-12-15). "Forethought nabs $65M Series C to improve customer service with AI" (in en-US). https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/15/forethought-nabs-65m-series-c-to-improve-customer-service-with-ai/. 
  15. ↑ "Forethought nabs $65M Series C to improve customer service with AI" (in en-US). https://finance.yahoo.com/news/forethought-nabs-65m-series-c-140039774.html. 
  16. ↑ Dina, Cristian (2026-03-12). "Zendesk acquires Forethought in its biggest deal in two decades" (in en). https://thenextweb.com/news/zendesk-acquires-forethought-agentic-ai. 
  17. ↑ Parker, Kevin (2026-06-02). "Blue Cloud Ventures Closes Fifth Fund to Expand AI Software Investments" (in en-US). https://www.citybiz.co/article/854673/blue-cloud-ventures-closes-fifth-fund-to-expand-ai-software-investments/. 
  18. ↑ Sorkin, Andrew Ross; Warner, Bernhard; Kessler, Sarah; Merced, Michael J. de la; Gallogly, Niko; O’Keefe, Brian; Mount, Ian (2026-03-11). "Microsoft Takes a Stand Against the Trump Administration" (in en-US). The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/11/business/dealbook/microsoft-anthropic-pentagon.html. 



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