.avif)
.svg)
Forum's Venture Studio brings together ambitious people, brilliant ideas, and capital to build the best B2B SaaS businesses in the world, from 0 to 1. In addition to capital and an idea, we support founders with a full design and development team, go-to-market support, strategy, and back-office (accounting, legal, HR) support. We also offer full fundraising support, including narrative and pitch deck creation, investor outreach plans, and investor introductions. Our model is designed to help you move faster, develop better insights, and build companies that have a higher success rate than startups built in any other way.
Forum Ventures’ AI Studio has evaluated and identified five opportunities aligned with major industry shifts and investment trends that we are excited to build in.
Our latest analysis has uncovered two core areas for innovation.
- Future application layer of AI agents: Examining how businesses can seamlessly integrate AI into existing workflows, automate complex processes, and enhance data-driven decision-making as a competitive advantage. As AI moves beyond general-purpose models and into highly specialized, verticalized solutions, the most successful startups will be those that embed AI directly into enterprise operations or enable this fundamental shift.
- The new presidential administration is introducing policy changes, regulatory shifts, and economic initiatives that will have far-reaching effects across industries. From data privacy laws and healthcare reform to financial regulations, labor policies, and trade agreements, these macroeconomic forces will shape how businesses operate, scale, and adapt in the coming years. In an era of political and economic change companies that proactively adapt to regulatory shifts and build flexibility into their operations will gain a lasting competitive edge.
AI Agent Payment Infrastructure
What is an AI Agent Payment Infrastructure?
AI Agent Payment Infrastructure is a system that integrates artificial intelligence into payment processing, allowing automated decision-making and seamless transactions. This infrastructure uses AI to enhance payment efficiency, security, and customization, often for digital or AI-driven platforms.
Context
AI agents are rapidly evolving from simple task automation tools to independent economic actors capable of executing transactions. While AI agents are already streamlining content creation, outreach, and invoicing, the next frontier is enabling them to autonomously initiate and process payments. However, existing financial infrastructure is not designed for AI-native transactions, creating friction in trust, security, and compliance. The AI companies that move closer to revenue will be the ones that scale faster and are able to deliver seamless, experiences to customers.
The Market
This is a blue-sky market with only early venture activity today, but we believe AI agent payments will explode over the next decade as AI-driven commerce becomes mainstream.
The AI agent economy is projected to grow from $3.66 billion in 2023 to an estimated $139.12 billion by 2033 (CAGR of 43.88%), driving significant demand for financial infrastructure that supports agent-led payments. While this market is still in its infancy, early players like Skyfire and Payman have raised funding, and Stripe’s recent move into the space signals growing industry momentum.
The Opportunity
This could be a developer toolkit but with Stripe's interest in the space our current thesis is building a financial platform purpose-built for AI agents. This platform will facilitate secure, compliant, and seamless payments across all rails, including ACH, wire transfers, card networks, and blockchain. This would include agent-specific identity verification, consent management, and real-time fraud prevention. Without a reliable system in place, businesses and consumers will struggle to trust AI-driven transactions, slowing adoption and preventing AI agents from delivering the best possible customer experience.
Why we’re excited
As agententic businesses scale, they will look to move closer to revenue and will need to integrate payments seamlessly into their product. Payments will be a core driver of the future of agentic commerce.
Payments have historically been a high-margin, highly scalable industry, and we believe this trend will continue, creating opportunities for multiple unicorns to be built within agent payments.
Automating Compliance for Aerospace & Defense
Context
Aerospace and defense companies operate in one of the most regulated industries, where compliance failures can lead to halted production, costly penalties, and even national security risks. However, mid-market aerospace suppliers who are critical to the industry’s supply chain still rely on outdated, manual, and consultant-driven compliance processes. Regulations like AS9100, ITAR, FAA, and DoD standards demand continuous documentation, frequent audits, and recertifications every 18 to 36 months, creating a significant operational burden. With increasing aircraft orders and a renewed focus on domestic manufacturing, mid-market aerospace suppliers need a smarter, automated way to manage compliance at scale.
The Market
The aerospace sector is experiencing rapid expansion, with commercial aircraft orders projected to grow by 30% over the next five years. The order backlog already exceeds 16,500 aircraft, and major OEMs like Boeing and Airbus depend on a vast ecosystem of 200 tier 1 suppliers and 12,000+ tier 2 and tier 3 suppliers. While large aerospace firms have dedicated compliance teams, mid-market players are underserved and lack modern compliance tools.
The Opportunity
A compliance and audit automation platform designed for mid-market aerospace and defense suppliers, centralizing compliance data, automating audits, and integrating risk management tools to streamline recertifications and ensure ongoing regulatory alignment.
By reducing reliance on expensive consulting services and eliminating manual workflows, it serves as a modern Quality Management System (QMS), saving firms both time and cost while improving compliance efficiency. Leveraging AI-powered document and audit management, the platform could automatically categorize compliance records, track version control, flag discrepancies, and generate audit-ready reports ensuring seamless alignment with AS9100, ITAR, FAA, and other critical industry regulations.
Why are we excited
Despite the aerospace industry’s reliance on cutting-edge technology, compliance tools remain antiquated. Most existing solutions are industry-agnostic, heavily manual, or consulting-based, leaving mid-market suppliers without a scalable, AI-powered process.
With America’s renewed focus on domestic manufacturing and supply chain resilience along with new tariffs on steel and aluminum implemented by the Trump administration and the looming threat of a trade war we anticipate a massive shift toward onshoring aerospace and defense production. This will drive industry growth, particularly within the mid-market, where companies looking to scale production will face significant compliance challenges.
Modern Insurance for AI Agents
Context
As AI adoption accelerates, businesses increasingly relying on AI agents for decision-making, automation, and critical operations. However, this rapid shift introduces new liability risks, including algorithmic errors, cybersecurity threats, intellectual property disputes, and regulatory violations. Traditional insurance policies aren’t designed to address AI-specific risks, creating a growing protection gap for companies deploying AI at scale. While some insurers have started categorizing AI-related risks under Errors & Omissions (E&O), Cyber, and Product Liability policies, the industry lacks purpose-built underwriting frameworks tailored to the unique risks of AI-driven systems.
The Market
The AI insurance market is projected to reach $4.7 billion in annual premiums by 2032, growing at a staggering 80% CAGR over the next decade. Regulatory bodies worldwide are implementing stricter AI governance policies, increasing demand for risk mitigation solutions. Despite this growth, many large insurers are taking a “wait and see” approach, leaving an opportunity for new entrants to establish themselves as leaders in AI-specific coverage. Companies like Vouch, Superscript, and Koop have already raised venture funding to tackle AI insurance, signalling strong investor confidence in the space.
The Opportunity
A specialized AI insurance platform that bridges the gap between traditional insurance and the emerging risks of AI. By developing AI-specific underwriting workflows, integrating real-time risk assessments, and leveraging alternative data sources, this platform can offer tailored coverage for AI-powered businesses. A go-to-market strategy focused on partnering with E&O and Cyber insurance providers, who are already incorporating AI into their coverage frameworks, would provide a low-risk, high-impact entry point into the AI insurance market.
Why We’re Excited
As AI adoption accelerates, businesses need AI-specific liability coverage to comply with regulatory and contractual requirements. The market is still in its early stages, giving first movers the opportunity to define underwriting standards and establish themselves as category leaders. With a growing market opportunity, growing regulatory pressures, and increasing demand for AI liability protection, we believe insuring AI agents will become a standard practice in the insurance industry.
Simplifying Surety Bonds
What is a Surety Bond?
A Surety Bond is a financial guarantee involving three parties (principal, obligee, and surety) that ensures the principal fulfills their obligations. If the principal fails, the surety compensates the obligee and seeks reimbursement from the principal.
Context
The surety bond industry remains heavily reliant on manual underwriting processes, creating inefficiencies that slow down approvals and increase costs. Underwriters and agents frequently handle repetitive tasks, many of which stem from standard yet labor-intensive underwriting processes for small and mid-sized businesses. Additionally, specialty surety bonds introduce even more complexity and demand further time and effort. These processes often involve heavy manual work, contributing to delays in construction projects and impacting cash flow. While firms like Dun and Bradstreet have made strides in automating surety underwriting, the industry remains fragmented and outdated.
The Market
The global surety bond market was valued at $18.2 billion in 2023 and is forecasted to expand at a CAGR of 5.8%, reaching $27 billion by 2030. Despite the relatively low growth rate, the industry is poised for robust expansion, driven by increased investment in infrastructure, rising demand for green energy projects, and a shift toward digitalization in the insurance sector. Additionally, high interest rates and liquidity constraints are making surety bonds increasingly favorable compared to traditional bank guarantees.
The Opportunity
A platform utilizing AI to automate underwriting models, for surety bonds to significantly enhance the understanding of risk profiles, streamlining and scaling the bond issuance process. The underwriting process integrates the crucial '3Cs'—Character, Capacity, and Capital, in which large portions of the process could be efficiently managed through AI by incorporating scenario analysis and embedded API solutions. These tools assess financial limitations and past bond claim histories and enhance evaluations of applicant character by analyzing patterns in data that may indicate reliability and integrity. This platform speeds up the process and tailors the assessment to each unique bond, affecting the premium outcome accordingly.
Why We’re Excited
The push for digitalization in surety bonds is accelerating, with 73% of insurers planning investments in digital platforms.
Investor interest is rising, as seen with InRev’s $3.8M seed round in 2025, signalling momentum in the space. As construction activity rebounds and government policies mandate digital surety adoption, the industry is at a tipping point.
Voice AI for Regulated Industries
Context
Over the next decade, AI agents will handle most customer service-related calls, fundamentally reshaping how businesses interact with consumers. Voice AI is rapidly evolving beyond simple speech recognition into large audio language models (LALMs) and real-time AI voice agents, driving transformation in customer service, workflow automation, and industry-specific interactions.
While foundational Voice AI solutions are maturing, the next wave of innovation lies in vertical-specific applications tailored for regulated industries such as Healthcare, Finance, Insurance, and Commerce. These sectors face strict compliance, security, and automation requirements, and existing Voice AI solutions fail to meet regulatory standards, leaving a significant gap in the market for purpose-built, industry-compliant AI voice platforms.
The Market
The Voice AI market is experiencing explosive growth as enterprises integrate AI-powered voice agents into their operations. Startups like Numa ($32M Series B for auto dealerships), Maki ($28.6M Series A for HR interviews), and Letter ($2.7M seed for AI sales coaching) highlight the rising demand for vertical-specific AI voice applications. However, compliance-heavy industries remain largely untapped due to regulatory complexities, creating an opportunity for tailored, secure Voice AI solutions.
The Opportunity
Despite growing adoption across vertical AI, highly regulated industries remain vastly underserved, where compliance, security, and workflow automation are critical.
The spaces we are heavily interested in are:
- Healthcare: AI-driven medical documentation, HIPAA-compliant automation, and clinical voice assistants that ensure regulatory adherence and protect patient data.
- Finance: Secure voice authentication, fraud detection, and AI-powered customer interactions that comply with SEC, CFPB, and banking security standards.
- Insurance: Automated claims processing, underwriting support, and AI-driven policy management that align with state insurance regulations and consumer protection laws.
- Commerce: Voice-enabled shopping, customer engagement, and frictionless transaction experiences that adhere to data privacy laws like GDPR, CCPA, and PCI-DSS for secure payments.
Why We’re Excited
With AI-driven automation accelerating across industries, voice remains the next frontier. Enterprises have widely adopted text-based AI assistants, but real-time, compliant Voice AI solutions remain rare. As businesses shift from text to voice interactions, the need for enterprise-grade, regulation-ready Voice AI will skyrocket.
Ready to build your AI-powered solution?
We're seeking exceptional founders to tackle these four concepts head-on. With the support of a dedicated team and $250K in initial funding, you’ll have everything you need to transform these concepts into thriving businesses.
If you’re interested in building with Forum please apply through the corresponding founder-in-residence description. If none of these areas fit what you’re working on, feel free to apply through the Forum Studio Founder posting. Please highlight relevant experience and the area you’re most interested in.
While we’re actively building in these spaces, Forum Ventures is always open to hearing from founders with bold, original ideas. If you're working on an early-stage B2B SaaS company, even at the idea stage, we’d love to hear your pitch through the Forum Studio Founder posting.
Founder-In-Residence Postings
.jpg)
.avif)
