Founders Everywhere: JT White and Susanna Pho
JT White and Susanna Pho are the co-founders of Forerunner, an AI-powered geospatial platform that enhances efficiency, automates workflows, and centralizes government agencies most critical tasks.
Welcome to Founders Everywhere, where we highlight the incredible people behind the companies we’ve backed at Everywhere Ventures, a global pre-seed fund supported by a community of 500 founders and operators.
When a catastrophic event like a hurricane or flood hits, local governments must quickly assess damage across entire communities and make decisions that affect thousands of families. Historically, that meant pen and paper in the field, then adding the information to a painful Excel tool that crashed if you tried to upload more than a couple photos. Forerunner builds software that replaces paper-based processes and outdated systems with digital tools that let teams collect data in the field, work offline when networks go down, and share transparent updates with residents. What began with floodplain management has expanded into stormwater management, code enforcement, permitting, and grant management, all on a single platform. Long before modern large language models, Forerunner used machine learning and AI to accelerate government workflows. They’re bullish on bringing more AI into the platform to create efficiencies, while ensuring these tools are deployed responsibly.
Co-founders JT White, CEO, and Susanna Pho, COO, are both architects and met over a decade ago as interns at the MIT Media Lab, where they worked on an interactive urban planning platform where people could design LEGO cities and see real-time data projected onto them. Even then, they shared a belief that better tools could improve how communities plan and respond to change. When JT began focusing on flood risk and resilience, Susanna was completing a masters in risk and resilience planning at Harvard and knew all the subject-matter experts. Her domain expertise paired naturally with JT’s product and technology background, and having already worked together, it was clear they were the right team to build Forerunner.
What inspired you to build Forerunner?
JT: I grew up in coastal Maine, where flooding from nor’easters was just part of life: roads under water, homes damaged, and communities constantly dealing with the aftermath. Later, I studied architecture, which gave me a deep appreciation for building codes and land‑use regulations, and then worked as a digital product designer in New York, building enterprise software. Forerunner really sits at the intersection of those experiences: climate risk and flooding, the regulatory tools that shape how we build, and modern software that can actually help governments manage all of it.
Susanna: Like JT, I come from a place shaped by real environmental risk — in my case, California — and I also have a background in architecture. I’ve always been drawn to the challenge of improving how public systems work. So many of the biggest issues communities face are ultimately managed through government institutions, but the people responsible for that work often lack the tools and resources they need to succeed. For me, Forerunner is about changing that by empowering governments with the modern systems they need to shape more resilient communities.
What’s Forerunner’s North Star?
Our North Star is to build intelligent tools that empower governments to strengthen resilience, beginning with floodplain management and now extending to stormwater management, code enforcement, and grant management. That mission to enable resilience has remained constant since day one, even as our product and scope have continued to expand.
Tell us about some recent milestones that Forerunner crushed.
We’re excited to announce $39M in total funding, with a $26.3M Series B led by Wellington Management and a Series A led by Union Square Ventures, as we continue building the modern operating system for local government.
We’ve expanded beyond floodplain management into stormwater, permitting, code enforcement, grant management, and asset management. We’re supporting broader resilience work, including response to extreme events, aging infrastructure and the housing crisis. All of it is built on the same integrated geospatial and AI foundation.
We’ve scaled to more than 200 government agencies across cities, large counties, and a growing number of states.
Why is Forerunner a must-have vs a nice-to-have?
Our software sits inside regulatory workflows that governments are legally required to run, and those workflows are only getting more scrutinized as disasters become more frequent and severe. As climate and infrastructure challenges grow, it’s local, state, and federal governments that actually have the levers to change how and where we build. Insurance companies can price risk, but local governments set and enforce the rules that actually reduce it. Because we help them operationalize those rules at scale, Forerunner becomes an essential platform.
How does Forerunner inspire “customer love”?
What we’ve learned working with government is that true innovation isn’t about introducing something new for its own sake, it’s about making the day-to-day work easier. When software does that, teams naturally adopt it and move away from the old processes – this is reflected in our exceptional retention. For example, after multiple hurricanes hit the west coast of Florida a few years ago, roughly 100,000 damage assessments were processed through our platform, helping local governments document impacts and guide recovery.
Fun Fact:
JT: A long time ago, I was a sponsored snowboarder. I spent a lot of time on the mountain and the love of being outside in the snow never really goes away.
Susanna: I once won a hot dog eating contest as a child!
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