Forward
Also a provider — view Forward’s profile →“Can a vertical-SaaS-native PFAC platform beat Stripe Connect by owning the whole facilitation model with transparent economics and license portability?”
Founded2023
HQAustin, Texas, USA
FoundersBrandon Lloyd, Derek Victory
Total raised$16M
Latest roundSeed, 2024
IndustryInfrastructure / Payments
The story
Founded 2023-2024 by Brandon Lloyd (ex-Bypass CEO, sold to Fiserv 2020) and a team of ex-SaaS/payments operators after seeing that vertical SaaS platforms were losing most of their payments upside to processors like Stripe. Forward's thesis: build a payment-facilitation platform explicitly for software companies — offering a Managed PFAC (Forward holds the license), a pathway to becoming a registered PFAC on the same tech (Rails), and layered growth/insurance services (Maximize, Protect). Positioned as the anti-lock-in alternative to Stripe Connect and legacy PFAC providers.
Product timeline
2024
Company launched with $16M seed round to offer PFAC-as-a-Service to SaaS platforms· pivot
2024
Announced partnership with Cross River Bank for Payouts-as-a-Service· banking
2026
Product suite formalized across Managed PFAC, Rails, Maximize, Protect tiers· pivot
Same company
Forward was analysed under more than one name on the same domain, so its stack is split across these dossiers. Each was analysed independently and may name providers the others do not.
The stack
6 layers disclosed in Forward’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
Money movement
in the full report
Banking / BaaS
in the full report
Card network
in the full report
Open banking
in the full report
KYC
in the full report
Accounting gap: minor
12 more providers across 5 layers, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.