CloudForge Raises $3.95 Million to Transform the Metals Supply Chain With AI
CloudForge, an AI-powered sales and procurement platform designed specifically for the metals supply chain, today announced that it has emerged from stealth mode and secured $3.95 million in funding from Zero Infinity Partners, Resolute Ventures, and Bienville Capital. The funding will be used to accelerate product development, expand AI capabilities, and scale the company’s engineering and customer success teams to meet growing demand across North America.
CloudForge is purpose-built to address one of the most persistent inefficiencies in metals sales and sourcing: a reliance on spreadsheets, outdated CRMs, and manual processes. By integrating artificial intelligence with a comprehensive market database and workflow tools, CloudForge is creating a modern, repeatable system that drives revenue growth, enhances sourcing speed, and strengthens customer and supplier relationships.
The Metals Supply Chain: A Backbone With Persistent Inefficiencies
Metals form the backbone of American manufacturing, powering critical industries such as aerospace, defense, automotive, energy, construction, medical devices, and industrial production. Every day, metal service centers, fabricators, and machine shops handle millions of dollars’ worth of materials, yet most operate with manual, fragmented systems.
Sales and procurement teams in these organizations face major challenges:
- Uncaptured demand: Opportunities are lost because teams cannot quickly identify qualified buyers or suppliers.
- Under-monetized accounts: Existing customers are often neglected due to inconsistent follow-ups and lack of account visibility.
- Slow deal cycles: Tracking down suppliers, requesting quotes, and negotiating pricing consumes hours, leading to delayed contracts and lost revenue.
- Operational inefficiency: Manual data entry and outdated tools limit scalability and make it difficult to grow revenue without adding headcount.
These inefficiencies create a chaotic environment, limiting profitability and market competitiveness for metals businesses, despite robust underlying demand for materials.
CloudForge: Turning Chaos Into an AI-Driven Operating System
CloudForge addresses these challenges by turning the metal market into a searchable, AI-powered operating system. Unlike a marketplace, CloudForge combines a proprietary database of over 165,000 verified metal companies across North America with integrated sales, CRM, and procurement tools, allowing teams to:
- Identify and engage new buyers
- Expand and monetize existing accounts
- Locate qualified suppliers quickly and efficiently
- Manage the entire sales and procurement workflow in one platform
“The metal industry doesn’t have a demand problem, it has a discovery and execution problem,” said Ben Marans, CEO and Founder of CloudForge. “Sales teams struggle to consistently find new buyers and re-engage existing accounts, while procurement teams waste hours tracking down the right suppliers. CloudForge is the AI co-pilot that turns that chaos into a repeatable growth engine, helping businesses win more customers, expand accounts, and source rapidly without adding headcount.”
By leveraging AI, CloudForge automates data collection, lead scoring, supplier qualification, and outreach, reducing human error and freeing teams to focus on high-value activities. The platform’s search engine allows users to quickly identify companies that meet specific criteria, such as production capabilities, location, and historical transaction behavior.
Early Adoption Demonstrates Real-World Impact
Early adopters of CloudForge are already seeing measurable results. For example, Tri-State Steel, a metals distributor in North Carolina, signed a new customer contract within the first week of using the platform. Another customer, Metals & Alloys, highlighted the competitive advantage provided by CloudForge:
“I honestly wouldn’t recommend it to people close to us because I don’t want them using it,” a representative said, underscoring how proprietary access to verified leads and suppliers can become a market differentiator.
These early wins demonstrate that CloudForge is not just an incremental improvement over legacy tools, but a transformational platform capable of generating revenue growth, shortening procurement cycles, and improving account management.
Funding to Fuel Growth and AI Innovation
The newly raised $3.95 million will allow CloudForge to:
- Accelerate Product Development: Enhance platform features, improve user experience, and add new workflow tools for sales, account management, and procurement.
- Expand AI Capabilities: Invest in machine learning models to improve predictive analytics, lead scoring, supplier matching, and real-time market insights.
- Scale Engineering Teams: Recruit top engineering talent to support faster iteration, platform scalability, and integration with other enterprise systems.
- Enhance Customer Success: Grow the customer success and support teams to onboard new clients, provide personalized guidance, and ensure rapid adoption.
This capital infusion is intended to position CloudForge as the go-to AI platform for metals sales and procurement, enabling businesses to modernize their operations and compete more effectively in a digital-first market.
How CloudForge Works: AI Meets Metals Supply
At its core, CloudForge combines three key capabilities:
- Market Intelligence: A proprietary database of 165,000+ verified metal companies across North America provides actionable insights into buyers, suppliers, and market trends.
- Sales Enablement: Integrated CRM tools, automated lead discovery, AI-assisted outreach, and account management workflows help sales teams consistently capture demand and expand customer relationships.
- Procurement Execution: Procurement teams can quickly identify qualified suppliers, request quotes, and execute material sourcing without wasting hours on manual processes.
Unlike traditional CRMs or marketplaces, CloudForge unifies sales and procurement workflows in one platform, making it easier for teams to collaborate and close deals faster. By leveraging AI-driven insights, companies can focus on strategic decision-making, rather than spending time on repetitive manual tasks.
The Broader Market Opportunity
The metals supply chain remains highly fragmented, with thousands of service centers, fabricators, and machine shops operating independently. Despite strong demand, these businesses often lack modern technology to efficiently match supply with demand.
By providing a centralized, intelligent platform, CloudForge addresses a critical pain point across the metals ecosystem: the lack of a scalable, data-driven system for finding buyers, engaging accounts, and sourcing suppliers.
Industry analysts note that as the manufacturing and industrial sectors continue to adopt digital transformation strategies, solutions like CloudForge will become increasingly essential for optimizing sales cycles, improving supplier networks, and maintaining competitive advantage.
CEO Vision: Building an AI Co-Pilot for Metals
Ben Marans, CEO and Founder, envisions CloudForge as more than just a software tool—it is an AI co-pilot for metals businesses:
“We’re creating a system that transforms the way metals are bought and sold,” Marans explained. “Our goal is to make every interaction actionable, every opportunity visible, and every transaction faster and more profitable. By combining AI with a comprehensive market database, CloudForge turns what used to be chaotic processes into a repeatable growth engine.”
The platform allows businesses to leverage data-driven insights for strategic decision-making, whether identifying new market segments, optimizing supplier selection, or expanding account penetration.
With the new funding, CloudForge plans to expand its reach across North America, targeting metal service centers, fabricators, and industrial suppliers that face persistent sales and procurement inefficiencies. The company also intends to scale its AI capabilities to provide even more predictive and automated insights, helping clients reduce cycle times, improve win rates, and strengthen margins.
The engineering and customer success teams will also grow, ensuring that rapid adoption of the platform is paired with robust support and guidance, allowing customers to maximize the benefits of AI-powered sales and procurement workflows.
CloudForge’s emergence from stealth and the successful $3.95 million funding round marks a significant milestone in the modernization of the metals supply chain. By leveraging AI, a proprietary database, and integrated sales and procurement tools, CloudForge is transforming the way metals are bought, sold, and sourced, offering companies a competitive advantage in an industry long dominated by manual processes.
As North American manufacturers, distributors, and fabricators adopt CloudForge, the platform is poised to become the definitive AI operating system for metals, helping businesses win new customers, expand existing accounts, streamline sourcing, and operate more efficiently without adding headcount.
With this combination of funding, market-ready technology, and early customer success, CloudForge is well-positioned to redefine the metals supply chain for the AI era, turning a historically fragmented and inefficient market into a connected, intelligent, and growth-driven ecosystem.
Key Highlights at a Glance:
- Funding Raised: $3.95 million from Zero Infinity Partners, Resolute Ventures, and Bienville Capital
- Headquarters: North America
- Database Coverage: 165,000+ verified metal companies
- Primary Use Cases: Sales enablement, account expansion, supplier sourcing
- Industries Served: Aerospace, automotive, defense, energy, construction, medical devices, industrial production
- Early Customer Wins: Tri-State Steel signed a new customer contract within the first week on the platform
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