Forage

Overview

Forage turned employer-authored job simulations into a bridge between college and work. Founded in Sydney in 2017 as InsideSherpa, it let students try short, self-paced tasks modeled on roles at firms such as JPMorgan, BCG, KPMG, and Goldman Sachs. Employers paid annual subscriptions; students and universities used the programs for free.

The company did not fail at product discovery. It pivoted early, grew through the 2020 internship shock, and reached millions of students. Its limiting factor was distribution across a three-sided system of students, universities, and employers. EAB acquired Forage in 2024 and inserted the simulations into platforms already used by thousands of colleges. Engagement nearly doubled to 10 million by August 2025.^[1]

The acquisition price remains undisclosed. The operating outcome was clear: Forage kept its product and brand, while EAB supplied the institutional reach the startup had spent years assembling one partnership at a time.

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Founding Story

Thomas Brunskill and Pasha Rayan founded the company in Sydney in 2017. Brunskill had worked as a corporate lawyer; Rayan had worked as a consultant. Both had seen how opaque professional careers looked from the outside, especially to students without family or university connections in those industries. They entered Y Combinator's Winter 2019 batch under the InsideSherpa name.^[2]

Their first product was a mentoring marketplace that connected students with young professionals. Demand pointed somewhere else. Brunskill told TechCrunch: “While students were interested in the product, they weren’t using it the way we intended.” Students kept asking, “we just want an internship at company X, can you get me one?”^[3]

That request contained a narrower job. Students wanted a credible preview of a named employer and evidence that they understood the role. The founders moved from one-to-one mentoring to repeatable virtual work experiences built with employers. King & Wood Mallesons launched the first course in 2017. Three years later, Brunskill thanked the law firm for taking a chance on the “weird idea.”^[4]

Rayan described the emotional problem in a UNSW interview: “Students have a large anxiety about not really understanding what the real world is like.” He said school, friends, and nominal work experience often did not show what graduates would do each day.^[5]

The team called its category “preskilling”: training before hiring, rather than after. The shift also changed the buyer. Employers paid to create branded programs that taught students, expanded recruiting reach, and identified intent. Students received free access. Universities gained career content without building it themselves.

Timeline

• 2017: InsideSherpa begins as a mentoring marketplace, then launches its first employer-authored course with King & Wood Mallesons.
• Winter 2019: The company joins Y Combinator.
• Early 2020: Internship cancellations move career preparation online. Enrollment grows more than 86% to one million students.^[3]
• September 2020: InsideSherpa raises a $9.3 million Series A led by Lightspeed and changes its name to Forage.
• August 2021: Blackbird leads a $25 million Series B. Forage reports nearly two million users from more than 200 countries.^[6]
• November 2023: Forage announces that Pearson will embed selected simulations in higher-education products.^[7]
• April 2024: EAB agrees to acquire Forage and place it within Seramount. Terms are not disclosed.^[8]
• August 2025: EAB reports more than 10 million student engagements, nearly twice the level at acquisition.

What They Built

A Forage simulation was a short course about a role at a specific employer. Students browsed by company, career, difficulty, and duration. A simulation introduced a fictional team or client, supplied background materials, and asked the student to complete tasks resembling entry-level work. A banking exercise might require an analysis or spreadsheet; a law program might cover due diligence or contract drafting.