API for merchants to accept SNAP and EBT government benefits
Forage operates a payments infrastructure layer for government benefits acceptance, built on Python, Django, PostgreSQL, and AWS—a classic fintech stack. The company is actively scaling toward merchant adoption (integration design, onboarding technology, GTM strategies) while simultaneously building consumer-facing surfaces (platform expansion, retention mechanics), suggesting a dual-sided growth model. Leadership hiring (9 senior roles out of 19 open) and balanced cross-functional growth (engineering, marketing, sales, product all staffing up) indicate transition from founding phase into product-market expansion.
Forage is a San Francisco–based payments company enabling merchants—primarily grocers and retailers—to accept SNAP and EBT benefits online and in-store through a unified API. The company serves the 42 million Americans receiving government assistance, addressing a market gap where legacy payments infrastructure has not supported benefits acceptance. Forage's stack (Python/Django backend, PostgreSQL, AWS infrastructure, Stripe integration) is purpose-built for payments processing. The founding team is scaling across engineering, sales, and marketing to support both merchant onboarding and a direct consumer application, with recent focus on monetization models across new benefit types and verticals.
Python, Django, PostgreSQL, Node.js, AWS, and JavaScript form the core. Forage maintains SOC 2 and ISO 27001 certifications and integrates with Stripe for payments processing.
Active projects include merchant integration design and onboarding technology, payfac/payment processor infrastructure, consumer application launch and retention, and GTM strategies for new benefit types and verticals.
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