Zendesk acquires Forethought in its biggest deal in two decades

The 2018 Startup Battlefield winner is joining Zendesk as the race to own agentic customer service accelerates

When Forethought won the TechCrunch Startup Battlefield competition in 2018, ChatGPT was four years from existing. The company’s pitch, that AI could handle customer service conversations autonomously, was considered ambitious to the point of eccentricity.

On Wednesday, Zendesk announced it has agreed to acquire Forethought, in what Computer Weekly reports is the company’s largest acquisition in two decades.

The deal, expected to close by the end of March, carries an undisclosed price tag. Forethought had raised $115 million in total funding from backers including Blue Cloud Ventures, NEA, Industry Ventures, Neo, Village Global, and Sound Ventures, as well as angel investors including May Habib of Writer, Scott Wu of Cognition, and Karan Goel of Cartesia.

Forethought was co-founded by Deon Nicholas, who serves as executive chairman, and Sami Ghoche, who became ...