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Forum Ventures backs founders who have spent 10, 15, 20 years inside an industry and are ready to fix what’s broken. You bring the lived, domain expertise. We bring the GTM motion, fundraising process, and investor network.
Forum Ventures is the accelerator and venture studio for founders who have spent years inside an industry and are ready to build the company around the problem they know best. Industry expertise doesn't come with a fundraising process or a repeatable GTM motion built in, and that is exactly the gap Forum closes. A dedicated Managing Director works 1:1 with every founder, and 65% of Forum's portfolio goes on to raise a meaningful next round. Forum's cohort is built from career-tested founders, self aware enough to know their gaps, and disciplined enough to close them.
portfolio companies backed since 2014
fund-through rate — founders who raise a pre-seed round
NPS score across the portfolio (3-year average)
in follow-on funding raised across the portfolio
Experienced founders often worry an accelerator cohort will skew young. Forum's cohorts are intentionally mixed: industry veterans sit alongside technical founders and young builders. Founders consistently cite the maturity of the cohort as something they didn't expect and valued enormously.
Forum looks for founders with firsthand experience with the problem they're solving. If you've spent years inside insurance, logistics, fintech, supply chain, or healthcare, you already know the buyer, the workflow, and what breaks. That's the advantage we build around.
Most industry veteran founders know the customer and the problem cold. What's new is building a product, a sales motion, and a pitch that gets a term sheet. That's where Forum's Managing Directors work hardest, 1:1, every week.
Every Forum Ventures founder works with a dedicated Managing Director who has built and scaled a B2B startup. Forum MDs meet with founders 1:1 every week, not in a classroom, on GTM, fundraising, and the business decisions an industry career never required.
Most people in my network told me not to do an accelerator. I had 15 years in this industry, so their read was I didn't need one. What sold me was Kevin telling me I'd leave with an understanding of how to build a successful business, whether it was venture backed or not. That's exactly what happened.
Founder & CEO of Optimly (September 2025 Cohort. Raised pre-seed from AI House, Mighty Capital and the Flywheel angels.)
Apurva Luty spent 15+ years in product marketing and UX research at Microsoft, Meta, and Discord, watching marketing teams struggle to learn how buyers actually saw their brands. Surveys took weeks, social listening measured noise, and brand trackers cost tens of millions. Then she noticed people having full conversations with ChatGPT, describing their lives and values before asking what to buy. She saw a step change. Optimly helps brands measure and improve how AI systems recommend them to buyers. Apurva chose Forum for its GTM-first approach, and Optimly closed a pre-seed round led by AI House, with Mighty Capital and the Flywheel angels.
Abby Nawrocki spent 12 years running US distribution for Zara and Apple, then the fulfillment network at a startup later acquired by Shopify. On every warehouse floor she saw the same thing: perfectly good inventory from store closures, unsold seasonal stock, and minor manufacturing errors headed to landfill. That's about $163 billion a year in goods that never reach a customer. Stock, her private marketplace, turns that excess inventory into donations instead. Forum was her hands-on partner through fundraising, and Stock closed a $1.5M pre-seed round with M25, Storytime Capital, Mighty Capital, Long Jump, and IU Ventures. Stock has since hired its first engineer, grown revenue 78% quarter over quarter, and moved 2 million units of excess inventory to nonprofits, with over $28M donated to date.
Sumit Ajwani spent nearly two decades running Makers, a global network of over 11,000 producers serving brands like PepsiCo, Airbnb, Sephora, and Amazon. To manage its own productions, Makers built internal tools and battle-tested them across more than 1,000 projects. Those tools became MakeOS, an AI workspace that gives production teams one system for scoping, budgeting, scheduling, vendor management, and documentation.
→ You have 5+ years of experience inside a specific industry and are solving a problem you have lived
→ You are building B2B software targeting the industry you know
→ You are at pre- or post-MVP stage and have raised less than $500K
→ You are new to venture fundraising and want a partner who can teach you the game
→ You want a cohort of peers who are mature, experienced, and serious — not just young tech builders
→ You are building B2C
→ You have already raised a seed round
→ You are looking for connections only — Forum's value is in the hands-on work, not just the network
If you have a strong thesis on a market problem but want to validate before committing, Forum's AI Venture Studio runs a validation sprint and invests $250K at formation. Our Studio is a common next step for experienced founders who want to feel certain before taking the leap.
Fill out the Pitch Us form. Forum reviews every application individually. You don't need a warm introduction — cold applications are welcome.
The real questions keeping founders up at (mid)night–– answered.
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