Founder Story: Building Forage AI with Aaron Calvo

Founder

United States

Brief Product Overview: Forage AI is an AI-powered data extraction and automation company specializing in the collection, crawling, extraction, parsing, structuring, and delivery of data. Our solutions are designed to quickly and efficiently transform complex and unstructured data into valuable insights.Solutions Offered:1. Web Data Extraction: Efficiently scrape and extract valuable data from any website. - Business / Firmographic Data - Social media data extraction for profile, values, insights and sentiments - Automated News Aggregation & Analysis - Automated Web Data Monitoring - Data on Demand with Custom Data Extraction2. AI & ML Solutions: Implement Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), Large Language Models (LLMs), and custom ML modules for precise data delivery.3. Intelligent Document Processing: Accurately find and extract information from extensive streams of both unstructured and structured documents.Unique Value Propositions: 1. Extensive Coverage & High Precision: Our solutions cover a broad spectrum of data needs with unmatched accuracy. 2. Customized Strategies: Tailor-fit solutions and strategies to meet specific client requirements. 3. Advanced Technology Utilization: Leverage cutting-edge technologies like ML, GenAI, NLP, and LLMs for enhanced data processing. 4. Proven Techniques: Use battle-tested, reusable modules and techniques. 5. Robust QA & Human-in-Loop: Combine intelligent human oversight with robust quality assurance for optimal results. 6. Comprehensive Data Management: Manage the full data lifecycle, including reruns for processing changes. 7. Flexible Crawling Capabilities: Handle both structured site crawling and open-ended data extraction. 8. End-to-End Data Pipelines: Design and manage complete data pipelines for seamless data integration and flow.Experience the never imagined potential of data extraction and automation with Forage AI.

Product

Date founded: April 11, 2017

Revenue

$15.5

Annual (ARR)

Current Users

200

What was the inspiration for building your Product?

The idea for Forage AI emerged from a recurring frustration across industries: the disconnect between raw, unstructured data and actionable insights. While many companies had access to vast amounts of documents, web data, or internal records, they struggled to extract and operationalize that information at scale. Traditional solutions like OCR or manual data entry were slow, brittle, and error-prone.We saw an opportunity to solve this using AI—not just to automate workflows, but to deeply understand the data through intelligent extraction, annotation, and structuring. The moment that solidified this vision was during a consulting engagement with a financial services client. Despite using “automated” tools, they were manually correcting over 40% of their data extractions. That was the spark: there had to be a better way.

What was the biggest challenge you faced while building your product?

Clients wanted bespoke solutions for invoices, insurance forms, legal contracts, and more—but we also needed a platform that scaled. Striking the right balance between flexibility and productization was an ongoing challenge.

What was a key win you achieved while building your product?

Secured our first enterprise client in insurance, improving data accuracy and turnaround by over 40%.Built scalable internal workflows to deliver high-quality, repeatable data extraction services.Developed industry-specific playbooks for finance, logistics, and legal projects.

What did you use for your Tech Stack?

Programming Languages: Python, JavaScript (TypeScript for frontend) Frameworks Backend: Django, FastAPI, Express.js (Node) Frontend: React + Tailwind Machine Learning: PyTorch, TensorFlow, Keras, Scikit-learn Dev Tools Docker (containerization), Kubernetes (orchestration) GitHub (source control), GitHub Actions, Jenkins (CI/CD), Ansible (configuration management) Orchestration/Infra/ Cloud AWS, GCP, Azure (multi-cloud) Postgres, Redis (data/caching) Terraform (infrastructure as code)

How long did development initially take?

18

Months

How long did it take for you to get your first users after launching?

Days

What is your next goal for growth?

Our next goal for revenue and user growth is to expand our enterprise services, particularly in finance, real-estate, and ecommerce—industries where the demand for accurate, scalable data extraction is rapidly growing. We’re aiming to double our active client base in the next two quarters.

What are your future plans for your product & company as a whole?

What's your favorite tech tool (Besides your own, of course)?

Is there a fun fact or something you'd like everyone to know about you?

Anyone you want to thank on your journey? Give them a shout out!

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