Project management platforms are among one of the best investments that businesses can use to be competitive and increase productivity. While functionality and features vary from platform to platform, most project management tools focus on planning, resource allocations, time management, and change management. Forecast is an AI-powered project management platform that centralizes all projects, resources, accounting, collaboration, and business intelligence into a single location. The platform integrates a number of the most popular SaaS tools that businesses already using like GitHub, Google Drive, Asana, Okta, Jira, Excel, Quickbooks, Salesforces, Slack, and Trello. By integrating artificial intelligence, the platform is always learning and able to provide predictive estimates based on past historical projects resource management. Founded in 2016, Forecast has helped managed over 178,000 projects with 4M+ tasks. With the use of AI directly in the platform, customers have been able to reduce administrative work by as much as 50%.
London TechWatch caught up with CEO and Cofounder Dennis Kayser to learn more about how a student project during university inspired the founding of the business, the benefits that AI is bringing to project management, the company’s latest round of funding, which brings the total funding raised to $29M, and much, much more.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
The funding round was led by Balderton Capital with participation from previous investors, Crane Ventures Partners, SEED Capital, and Heartcore. The Series A funding round raised $19M.
Tell us about your product or service.
The Forecast platform is the most advanced product available that applies significant AI and machine learning technology to financial management and project management at scale. Forecast is the only solution that unites projects, resources, financials, and business intelligence in one easy-to-use platform, solving the issue of transparency on all business operations. Having all operational data in one place allows businesses to better close gaps that lead to profitability.
What inspired the start of Forecast?
While studying computer science at the University of Copenhagen, four students were working on creating a software solution for one of the largest Nordic Financial Institutions that would address the immense difficulty they had delivering projects within time, scope and budget, while running 40-50 IT development projects simultaneously with 100+ project managers. After conducting research that found this was a problem for other companies, the four students founded Forecast.
How is it different?
Most of our competitors are still in the prototyping stage when it comes to AI. Our platform is truly always learning and always improving, with AI constantly driving it forward to be even better and more intelligent. Current systems are merely data collection, with no predictive capabilities. That’s where we stand out. Our AI can predict how long tasks and projects will take, which team members are best placed to lead them, and provide intelligence on everything from resource to budget and everything in between. It can use historical data to replicate project structures, which saves on time spent inputting repetitive data, and produce an entire project timeline at the click of a button. In addition, the platform can automatically reflect changes across the project portfolio, updating dependencies and allocating required resources.
What market are you targeting and how big is it?
The markets for collaborative applications and project and portfolio management, in aggregate, are expected to grow from $23 billion in 2020 to $32 billion in 2023.
$1 million is wasted every 20 seconds. Our technology addresses this $438 billion annual problem, by removing 80% of manual work for all Project Managers in the world.
The world of professional services is undergoing huge change, and clients are more demanding of speed, quality and agility than ever.
What’s your business model?
Forecast is software as a service, meaning people buy a subscription to use the product. This is based on a monthly or annual cost.
How has COVID-19 impacted the business??
COVID-19 meant adoption of technology was accelerated by probably 5 to 10 years. People realised that their dispersed tools were no longer fit for purpose and they needed a more unified solution that would give them greater transparency across remote teams, encouraging more collaboration and fostering better communication both internally and with clients, stakeholders, and senior management.
The funding follows unprecedented growth in the past 12 months, with Forecast tripling revenue through the pandemic. As the pandemic progressed, this anticipation of market need allowed the company to leverage its platform to drive this massive growth.
What was the funding process like?
It was fairly simple; it was quite a short process. We spent about two months on it and had four competing offers.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
The biggest challenge with this is always convincing investors that the market is big enough to warrant the investment of the size you are looking for, and communicating the viability of the business and that it has a really promising future.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
Our very, very happy customers give us fantastic reviews that emphasize just how much they love the product and the team. Our customers also stay with us for a long time.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
Less than a year after launching a commercial office in the UK, Forecast plans to invest part of the funding to launch in North America, while continuing to scale in the UK. The company will also invest heavily into the continued development of the platform to anticipate market demands, with the aim to make Forecast the easiest platform to use in the market and to build predictability so customers can forecast financials and increase profitability.
Less than a year after launching a commercial office in the UK, Forecast plans to invest part of the funding to launch in North America, while continuing to scale in the UK. The company will also invest heavily into the continued development of the platform to anticipate market demands, with the aim to make Forecast the easiest platform to use in the market and to build predictability so customers can forecast financials and increase profitability.
What advice can you offer companies in London that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Think about the market and where demands and customer trends are going – and make yourself indispensable in that space.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
We’re opening our US office, and also scaling aggressively with our teams across all three of our offices. Check out our open roles, we are actively looking for great people to join the team across all offices.
What’s your favourite outdoor activity in London?
Drinking outside at a pub!
