Poetic, formerly known as Forge, the company building a new class of software that learns like AI but runs like code, has raised a $50 mn Series A round at a $500 mn valuation. Kleiner Perkins led the financing, with participation from Founders Fund, First Harmonic, and OpenAI.
Poetic helps the largest enterprises define and automate their hardest processes. Leveraging the intelligence of AI, with the precision of software – reliably, accurately, and at-scale.
Poetic targets high-volume, high-stakes processes across industries such as healthcare, banking, and insurance, where older software has failed to automate complex manual work.
Many of these industries still depend on decades-old workflows, spreadsheets, manual reviews, and institutional knowledge spread across teams. Traditional software improved parts of those processes, but it often struggles with dynamic workflows and unstructured decision environments.
Generative AI has promised to solve those problems for years. In practice, many enterprise deployments have remained shallow, built around LLM layers that sit at a distance from mission-critical work. Poetic argues that those systems were not designed to handle processes that need near-perfect accuracy and strict operational control.
The company takes a different route. It has built a system for multi-hour workflows that run thousands of times a day, require high accuracy, and depend on rules that employees often know but never formally documented.
Instead of relying on autonomous agents that companies struggle to control, Poetic uses a purpose-built programming language. Operators define complex workflows in natural language, and the system converts that operational knowledge into deterministic, near-tokenless execution.
Poetic says this structure delivers 99% accuracy on processes companies have tried to automate for decades. It also runs at a lower cost than traditional AI agent architectures, according to the company.
“Right now in AI, there’s too much attention on quick demos and shiny objects, and not enough on outcomes,” said Markie Wagner, CEO and founder of Poetic.
We built a new kind of software that learns like AI but runs like code, so the hardest work in your business finally gets done reliably, allowing your business to evolve faster and operate at a scale that was previously impossible.
Markie Wagner, CEO and founder of Poetic
Poetic is already deployed at large financial services organisations. The company said it has produced double-digit mn in savings for Fortune 500 companies by automating difficult, high-risk processes such as transaction monitoring and disputes investigations.
The startup reached an eight-figure run rate in 2025 with four employees. That level of revenue density gives investors a strong signal around product demand and operating efficiency.
At SoFi, Poetic reached more than 99% quality while executing fraud investigations end-to-end in five weeks. At AIG, the company also reached more than 99% accuracy on a complex, multi-hour process that previously required major manual effort.
Anthony Noto, CEO of SoFi, said Poetic executed many fraud processes end-to-end within weeks. He said the system improved quality metrics and member experience, while restoring access immediately through auto-decisioning instead of making customers wait for days.
As we’ve scaled across the business, we’ve seen 100% process adherence, even in our most complex compliance investigations.
Leigh Marie Braswell, partner at Kleiner Perkins, led the Series A. She said Wagner stood out as one of the most forward-looking AI founders she has encountered.
“What Poetic has built is genuinely different – a platform that can execute the complex, high-stakes processes that large enterprises actually run, with accuracy that exceeds what human teams can deliver,” Braswell said.
Braswell said Poetic’s ability to automate work at large companies with strict requirements shows how deeply the product functions. She also pointed to the company’s team, which includes leaders from Palantir, UiPath, Ramp, Scale, Retool, and other technology firms.
Poetic plans to use the new capital to scale its forward-deployed team and expand into additional complex industries. The company also wants to bring its platform to more of the world’s largest enterprises.
Wagner said many enterprise AI pilots never move into production. She said Poetic has achieved a 100% pilot-to-production conversion rate, reflecting a focus on outcomes rather than demonstrations.
“The enterprise AI landscape is littered with pilots that never made it to production,” Wagner said. “For us, we’ve had a 100% pilot to production conversion rate. Our technology works, and we hire the best of the best – because we’re not here to run pilots. We’re here to transform businesses.”
According to Beinsure analysts, Poetic fits the next phase of enterprise AI adoption. Banks, insurers, and healthcare groups need controlled automation for regulated workflows, not open-ended agents that create governance problems.
