We’re excited to share that Blue Cloud Ventures has led Forethought’s recent $25 million growth with participation from some of the most respected voices in AI, including May Habib (co-founder & CEO of Writer) and Scott Wu (co-founder & CEO of Cognition), NEA, Sound Ventures, and others.

Customer service is undergoing a seismic shift, from armies of human agents and rigid bots to true agentic AI that can reason, act, and deliver outcomes autonomously across systems and channels. For enterprises, it represents one of the largest, most immediate, and highest-impact opportunities for generative AI, with over $200 billion in global spend ripe for disruption.

Forethought is leading that shift with its omnichannel, AI-native platform that delivers tangible results from day one. We’re proud to back Sami, Deon, and the rest of the team bringing this vision to life in production for enterprise customers.

Why We’re Excited about Forethought

At BCV, we’ve been tracking Forethought for years. Consistently across the last five quarters, the company accelerated growth as it continued to lean into gen AI in the midst of major market tailwinds. However, what stood out most wasn’t just numbers — it was how Forethought wins.

Customers like Airtable, Grammarly, Cohere, and Datadog chose Forethought for its unique ability to automate multi-step, human-like workflows out-of-the-box, without the months-long implementations that typically bog down AI deployments.

Here’s how it works: Forethought connects to existing support systems, analyzes historical ticket data, and identifies high-impact workflows to automate. Its “Autoflow” engine then surfaces recommended flows in plain English, which support teams can easily review and customize. Once approved, Forethought auto-builds the workflows, recycling existing APIs wherever possible. Developers only step in to refine or test integrations. This in-product guidance eliminates the need for professional services, streamlines manual configuration, and makes complex automation feel simple.

With the recent launch of voice capabilities and its multi-agent, omnichannel platform, Forethought now allows enterprises to engage customers across any channel while delivering personalized, end-to-end resolutions.

AI-Driven Support Can’t Wait

The support landscape is at a critical inflection point:

  • Customer satisfaction is declining: Forrester’s CX Index is at a record low for the third straight year, driven by poor digital experiences and rising customer expectations [1]
  • Support is now a key brand differentiator: Trends like declining consumer brand loyalty and increasing reliance on online reviews have made customer service a potential differentiator or critical pitfall
  • Enterprise CIOs are investing in AI: 75% are prioritizing AI adoption to improve business growth and efficiency, with support cited as a key focus area [2]

But Enterprise Adoption Faces Friction

Despite the above, end customers are still dealing with frustrating support interactions because agentic AI adoption still faces key roadblocks:

  • Support teams often drive blind — it is hard to identify, prioritize, and effectively configure high-impact workflows for automation
  • Agentic AI often requires lengthy, costly, professional services-heavy implementations per workflow, driven by a large variance of 1) customer service interactions and 2) internal enterprise systems
  • This generation of the AI support market is still nascent, and solutions often excel in specific channels or use cases — businesses attempting to implement AI often deliver fragmented customer experiences caused by a disjointed tech stack

This Is Where Forethought Steps In

Forethought’s approach smooths over these friction points and helps enterprises rethink what support can look like in an AI-native world.

Congrats to Sami, Deon, and the Forethought team — we’re thrilled to be a part of the journey!

—

[1] Forrester US Customer Experience Index

[2] BCG: Where’s the Value in AI

BERLIN, Germany–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Blue Cloud Management LLC (“Blue Cloud Ventures” or “BCV”), a leading venture capital firm headquartered in New York City, is proud to announce the opening of its European office in Berlin. Blue Cloud Ventures is a growth-stage VC focused on B2B SaaS companies globally. BCV has invested in 43 companies to date, including investments in European companies such as Cognism, Templafy, and most recently, LMS365.

DENVER, CO (April 11, 2022) – Pax8, the leading cloud commerce marketplace, today announced it has raised $185 million in new equity capital from new investor SoftBank Vision Fund 2, increasing the company’s valuation to $1.7 billion. SoftBank Vision Fund led the funding series with additional contributions from existing investors Catalyst Investors, Sageview Capital, Blue Cloud Ventures, and Liberty Global Ventures. As part of the transaction, Kristin Bannon, Investment Director at SoftBank Investment Advisers, will be named to the Pax8 Board of Directors.

As we enter Junior Year of the global pandemic, the sight of empty or near-empty grocery store shelves has returned from its debut in early 2020.

London-based B2B-focused sales and marketing lead generation platform provider Cognism has raised $87.5m (£64m) in funding. The Series C round was led by new investor…

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Dec. 27, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Paradox, the conversational recruiting platform built to give every recruiter, hiring manager, and talent professional an assistant to get work done, today announced a $200M Series C investment.

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Blue Cloud Ventures (BCV) is pleased to announce the final close of its fourth fund, Blue Cloud Ventures IV LP. With the oversubscribed fund and co-investment commitments from its LPs, BCV has raised $350 million.

Whether you need help managing inflation or the Great Resignation, here are the PE and VC firms you can trust…

Online learning continues to see a huge boost of attention and use in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and today a startup building tools specifically for enterprises to deliver on their internal education remits is announcing a big round of funding that points to the startup’s own growth and ambitions…

Armed with some data from our friends at CrunchBase, I broke down the largest US startup funding rounds from June 2021. I have included some additional information such as industry, company description, round type, founders, and total equity funding raised to further the analysis…