Forgepoint raises $9.8 million to speed up manufacturers’ price quotes

Forgepoint is putting more capital behind the office work that happens before a manufacturer wins an order. On October 14, 2026, it announced a $9.8 million seed round led by Primary Venture Partners and a16z speedrun. The funding will extend Frank, its AI sales and quoting assistant, to more manufacturers and deepen its software integrations.

Angel investors from OpenAI, Brex, Vercel and SoFi also participated, Forgepoint said. Those are individuals associated with the companies, not an announcement that the four companies themselves invested. Forgepoint also plans to use the capital to grow its team.

CEO Jack Strauss told SiliconANGLE that his previous industrial roles exposed a persistent mismatch: heavy investment in production automation alongside back offices still dependent on email, spreadsheets and aging business software. His experience included Northrop Grumman, Bain’s Advanced Manufacturing practice and aerospace company Xwing.

In early 2025, Strauss and co-founder Alex Pareto spent months visiting Midwest plants, shadowing employees and studying their processes. Pareto previously led engineering for Brex’s Spend Management organization. They chose inside sales as their starting point because answering requests for quotes is directly tied to winning work.

From an incoming email to an approved price

A request for quotation, or RFQ, can arrive as an email with several attachments and missing specifications. An estimator may have to clarify requirements, locate similar jobs, calculate costs, secure engineering approval and apply margins. Entering prices into business systems, producing the document and following up add more handoffs.

Forgepoint says Frank takes on that surrounding administrative work rather than replacing the people responsible for technical and commercial decisions. It gets an email address on the manufacturer’s domain and is configured around the shop’s operating procedures, pricing rules and approval requirements.

When a request arrives, Frank reads the email and attachments, flags missing requirements and contacts the buyer for clarification. It analyzes part files, uses the manufacturer’s own cost model to prepare pricing and surfaces similar historical jobs. The draft then goes to the appropriate human reviewer.

After approval, Frank creates the final quote in the company’s template, sends it, handles follow-up and records the correspondence. The configuration differs by manufacturer; Forgepoint describes distinct tasks for businesses selling cut metal and those producing cast parts.

• At a metal service center, Frank matches material lists and cut lengths against a catalog, applies customer-specific pricing and checks inventory.
• At a foundry, it reviews part files, asks the buyer for missing drawing specifications and prepares a first draft for an engineer.

Before Forgepoint, we were building quotes by hand and barely keeping up. Now, Frank drafts and I can approve it in two minutes. I’m spending less time entering data and more time serving my customers,

Chas Aday, founder and CRO of SIP Manufacturing, in Forgepoint’s announcement

More quotes, with sales results still unresolved

Forgepoint says it reached seven-figure annual recurring revenue within six months of Frank’s launch. Hundreds of engineers, estimators and sales representatives now use it weekly. Across customers, the company reports an average 30% increase in monthly quote volume and a reduction of more than 55% in time to produce a quote.

Those are company-reported workflow gains, not disclosed increases in contracts won or customer revenue. The announcement does not give the customer sample size or measurement period behind the averages.

Frank also preserves emails, attachments and the reasoning behind decisions, according to Forgepoint. The company presents that record as a way to retain pricing knowledge, customer preferences and exceptions as veteran employees retire. Longer term, it plans to apply the same approach to other back-office departments, aiming to support growth without administrative hiring rising at the same rate.