Forage Raises $40M to Modernize SNAP’s Digital Payments

Forage, the San Francisco company that processes Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) transactions for online grocers and delivery platforms, raised $40 million in a Series B on June 3 to expand digital access for the roughly 40 million Americans who rely on food assistance benefits. Mouro Capital, a fintech-focused fund, led the round. Seven additional firms joined the syndicate, including PayPal Ventures and Intuit Ventures.

Payment volume on Forage’s platform has grown 13 times over the past year, across more than 100,000 stores in all 50 states. That capital also backs a consumer app, launched in late 2025, that the company is pushing toward one million low-income families by year-end.

The Payment Rail That Skipped the Internet

Electronic Benefits Transfer, or EBT, became the sole nationwide method for distributing SNAP food assistance in June 2004. The system was built for in-store use: magnetic-stripe cards at physical checkout terminals. Online grocery ordering and mobile account access weren’t part of the original design.

Congress changed that in 2014. The Agricultural Act of that year directed the USDA to run an online purchasing pilot for SNAP. After two years of retailer recruitment and technical work, the USDA SNAP online purchasing pilot launched in April 2019 with eight retailers across eight states. Forage went through Y Combinator’s accelerator program in 2021 and began its USDA certification process that same year.

Processing a SNAP transaction online is technically more involved than processing a standard card payment. Each online EBT order requires encrypted PIN entry from the customer, a split-tender calculation separating SNAP-eligible food items from anything else in the same cart, and routing through the federal EBT network for the eligible portion. Retailers wanting to accept SNAP online must partner with one of the USDA’s approved third-party processors for online SNAP transactions. That list holds three names: Fiserv, WorldPay, and Forage.

Forage cleared USDA certification in August 2022, becoming the third approved processor. Per its own description, it is the only one offering dedicated project management and documentation support to retailers through USDA authorization, and has since expanded coverage to include WIC benefits, Health Savings Accounts (HSA), and Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) alongside SNAP.

How 40 Million Americans Got Left Off the Digital Grid

For SNAP households, the gap between the system’s 2004 design and today’s consumer landscape is concrete. Most have no secure way to check their EBT balance through a mobile app without routing through a state agency’s website. The majority of online grocery platforms and delivery services stay off-limits for SNAP purchases, since most haven’t cleared USDA pilot authorization. Rewards programs that mainstream food apps offer their users haven’t historically applied to EBT cardholders.

• ~40 million Americans receive SNAP benefits each month, roughly one in eight households
• 53% of American adults in a Forage-cited survey named grocery prices their top financial stressor
• 45.5% of U.S. households in 2024 couldn’t cover basic necessities, per the Brookings Institution

The Brookings Institution’s May 2026 report found that a $1,000 increase in annual living costs would push another 3 million U.S. households past that affordability threshold. For most of the 40 million people on SNAP, food spending is capped by what’s left on the benefits card at any given point in the month.

The Eight-Firm Syndicate Behind the Round

Mouro Capital led the Series B, announced June 3. Christopher Gottschalk, the firm’s General Partner, made his investment case in Forage’s announcement:

SNAP is one of the largest and most underserved payment ecosystems in the country. Forage has built the only modern infrastructure to serve it at scale. We’ve watched this team earn the trust of consumers, retailers, platforms, community groups, and government stakeholders. We believe Forage is defining this category, and we see even greater opportunities ahead.

The full eight-firm syndicate:

PayPal Ventures and Nyca Partners are returning backers from Forage’s earlier $22 million funding round, which also included Instacart co-founder Apoorva Mehta and Y Combinator. PayPal’s stake connects one of the world’s largest payments networks to a processor working in a government benefits market that runs hundreds of billions in annual grocery spend. Intuit Ventures operates at the intersection of financial software and the income brackets that overlap most heavily with SNAP recipients. Pivotal Ventures, Melinda French Gates’ investment company, has focused on technology reaching communities underrepresented in consumer tech. FJ Labs, a high-volume marketplace fund, completes the syndicate.

Forage co-founder and CEO Ofek Lavian described the company’s purpose in the same announcement: “The cost of groceries is the number-one financial stressor in America. At Forage, we’re building a network for affordability, making it easy for low-income Americans to save on groceries.”

A Free App Built for SNAP Households

The consumer side of Forage’s business is relatively new. The company launched a free mobile app in late 2025 that has been downloaded more than 100,000 times. Forage’s target is one million low-income families using it by year-end.

The app’s features address gaps in what the underlying EBT system provides by default:

• Secure real-time EBT balance checks, without routing through a state agency website
• Reward points on everyday grocery purchases
• A locator for SNAP-accepting stores, both nearby and online
• State-level breakdowns of SNAP-eligible items
• Financial health tools tied to benefits usage

Two of those features address long-standing friction points. EBT cardholders have traditionally needed to call a 1-800 number or navigate a state agency’s website to check their remaining balance. Mainstream food apps from DoorDash to Instacart have offered loyalty rewards for years; EBT cardholders have had no comparable program built around their payment method.

Forage’s payments infrastructure runs inside retailer checkout flows, invisible to the end consumer. The consumer app is the company’s first product built directly for SNAP recipients rather than for the merchants who accept their payments.

From 35,000 Online Shoppers to 12 Million

In March 2020, 35,000 SNAP households were using their benefits for online grocery purchases nationwide, per USDA data. When COVID-19 restricted in-person shopping, the USDA opened its online pilot to any SNAP-authorized retailer. Participation climbed from that low base: by April 2023, the USDA reported 3.7 million SNAP households shopping online. Much of the jump between 2023 and early 2026 came from delivery platforms, as DoorDash and Uber Eats both came online with SNAP EBT acceptance, bringing the program to households with no nearby physical SNAP-authorized store. In June 2023, the USDA announced that online SNAP purchasing had reached all 50 states. By January 2026, when Forage announced an API-level payment partnership with Adyen, Forage’s own figures showed more than 12 million online SNAP shoppers.

Forage describes itself as the only approved processor offering both software tools and dedicated regulatory guidance through USDA authorization, a combination it credits for building a retailer network that now covers delivery platforms and physical chains alike.

The Adyen-Forage SNAP EBT partnership, formalized in January 2026, embeds Forage’s technology into a payment platform used across a wide range of global retail and restaurant chains. Adyen merchants can enable EBT through their existing integration without a separate USDA authorization process. Delivery platforms accepting SNAP online now reach households without cars and recipients in rural areas where the nearest grocery store may be miles away. Forage says merchants on its infrastructure have grown sales by more than 15% on average.

One of Three Seats in a Regulated Market

The USDA’s list of approved processors for online SNAP EBT has held three names since Forage joined in August 2022: Fiserv (operating under the PaySecure brand for EBT), WorldPay (a subsidiary of FIS), and Forage. Clearing the list requires USDA certification covering encrypted online PIN entry, split-tender transaction handling, and ongoing federal compliance. Those technical and regulatory requirements have kept the processor count at three for more than three years.

Fiserv and WorldPay are large established payments companies with existing enterprise client bases. Forage built its case on smaller retailers, from regional chains to independent community grocers, that had historically lacked the resources to work through a federal technology authorization on their own. Clearing USDA authorization without support typically requires dedicated compliance staff that most independent operators don’t have. Bundling that guidance into its offer helped Forage grow its network to more than 100,000 stores.

Payment volume on Forage’s platform grew 13 times in the past year. The consumer app carries a one-million-family target for year-end.