Forward Networks
Provides a digital twin platform for enterprise network management.
a16z — Backed by a16z H-1B sponsor history — This employer has had H-1B petitions approved by USCIS in the last five fiscal years, per the USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub. The approval belongs to the employer and is not a commitment to sponsor this role.Company facts
- Founded
- 2013
- Employees
- 230
- Headquarters
- United States
- CEO
- David Erickson, Brandon Heller
- Type
- Private
- Funding
- Series D · $50M · 2023
About
We are Forward Networks, and we're revolutionizing the way large networks are managed. Our journey began in 2013, when our four co-founders, David Erickson, Nikhil Handigol, Brandon Heller, and Peyman Kazemian, met as Ph.D. researchers at Stanford University. Having hands-on experience with operating software-defined networking deployments, we recognized the inherent complexities, the potential for human error, and the limitations of existing tools in network operations. These challenges made networks fragile and difficult to troubleshoot, inspiring us to build a better way. We envisioned a future where network operators could have complete clarity and control over their infrastructure. Our core innovation is the creation of a 'digital twin' for networks. This isn't just a map; it's a mathematically accurate software replica of an entire network infrastructure, encompassing everything from configuration data to the operational state of all devices. This allows us to model and analyze network behavior with unprecedented precision. Our flagship platform, Forward Enterprise, empowers network, security, and cloud operations teams to verify intent, predict network behavior, and simplify overall network management. We help organizations to proactively identify potential issues, rapidly debug problems, ensure network-wide policy correctness, and confidently deploy changes without risking outages. We support a wide array of devices from all major networking vendors, as well as cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, making our solution ideal for today's complex, multi-vendor, hybrid-cloud environments. Our commitment is to make networks more agile, predictable, and secure, enabling businesses to operate with greater efficiency and confidence. We're proud to serve leading Fortune 500 companies and highly secure federal agencies, who trust us to manage their mission-critical networks.