The Series D, led by Forerunner and Tactile Ventures, comes as Fora crosses $3 billion in bookings and rolls out its embedded AI assistant for travel advisors.

NEW YORK, July 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Fora, the platform powering a new generation of travel entrepreneurs, today announced it has closed a $60 million Series D at a $1 billion post-money valuation. The round is led by Forerunner and Tactile Ventures, with continued participation from existing investors Thrive Capital, Insight Partners, and Heartcore Capital. New investors PLUS Capital, alongside Amy Schumer and other members of its artist and athlete collective, BlackPines Capital Partners, and Tribeca Venture Partners, also joined the round.

The financing follows a period of accelerated growth for the company. Since its founding in 2021, Fora advisors have booked more than $3 billion in travel. It took Fora three years to reach its first $1 billion in lifetime bookings, eight months to reach the second billion, and just five months to reach the third.

Fora’s next bet is that AI will make travel advisors more valuable — not obsolete. Fora is focused on scaling Via, its embedded AI assistant, currently in beta with a group of the company’s top advisors. The new AI operating layer across Fora’s entire platform is designed to help advisors tackle tasks like destination research, supplier knowledge, client itineraries, and proposal generation, dramatically reducing time-consuming administrative work. With Via, advisors spend less time on operations and more time on the things only humans do well: building relationships, offering experience-informed judgment and personalization, and planning the kind of trip no algorithm can replicate.

“Fora’s mission has always been to give advisors the infrastructure they need to build real businesses,” said Evan Frank, co-founder of Fora. “In the age of AI, the ceiling on what’s possible for this profession is only getting higher, and the things that are hardest to replicate — human expertise, relationships, taste — matter even more. With AI increasingly handling the operational layer, we’re already seeing advisors building bigger, more meaningful businesses — faster.”

Fora’s growth has coincided with broader momentum in the travel advisory profession. LinkedIn ranked travel advisor as the fifth-fastest-growing job in the United States in 2025. 97% of Fora’s over 15,000 active advisors are new to the travel advising profession, including former physicians, attorneys, traders, full-time parents, and retirees who use Fora to run travel businesses. Fora’s model accommodates a range of advisor businesses on the platform, from those advising for supplemental income to advisors making more than $10 million in annual bookings.

“Fora has more revenue than all AI travel companies, combined,” noted Brian O’Malley, founder and managing partner of Tactile Ventures. “Fora is bigger in AI travel because their offering combines automation when you want it with human accountability when you need it to provide a seamless traveler experience.”

The new capital brings Fora’s total funding to $138.5M and will allow Fora to deepen AI capabilities through Via, expand to new markets, grow its presence in categories like cruise, flights, and enterprise investment, and continue hiring.

About Fora

Fora is the platform powering a new generation of travel entrepreneurs. Its AI-enabled platform gives advisors the technology, training, and community to build thriving businesses—and connects travelers to personalized trip planning, expert service, and VIP perks worldwide. Since the company launched in 2021, Fora advisors have booked more than $3 billion in travel for clients across 180+ countries. Fora is headquartered in New York City and backed by Forerunner, Tactile Ventures, Thrive Capital, Insight Partners, Heartcore Capital, PLUS Capital,  BlackPines Capital Partners, Tribeca Venture Partners. Learn more at foratravel.com.

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SOURCE Fora

NEW YORK, July 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — A growing shortage of AI-skilled talent in the U.S., compounded by tightening immigration policies, is forcing small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) to rethink how and where they hire, according to a new report released today by Multiplier, the global exchange for work, featuring data and analysis from the recent TriNet (NYSE: TNET) State of the Workplace report.

The report, The Global Talent Squeeze, commissioned by Multiplier, includes data from a survey of 500 business decision-makers in senior-level roles. Key findings include:

87% of U.S.-based SMBs surveyed now consider global hiring a necessity, rather than a strategic advantage.60% of respondents say the rise of AI is accelerating demand for expertise they don’t currently have in-house.76% of SMBs say that H-1B visa restrictions are directly affecting workforce planning, forcing a pivot to remote-first hiring.

“Talent has never been confined to one geography but, until now, most smaller companies lacked the infrastructure for finding the right talent outside of their zip code,” said Multiplier Co-Founder and CEO Sagar Khatri. “We’re seeing a fundamental shift, where businesses are hiring talent where they live, rather than trying to move them. While it makes hiring more complex in terms of compliance, payroll, and workforce management, the opportunities for innovation, growth, and scalability that global hiring brings show there is real value in making the change.”

For smaller organizations without dedicated HR resources, the challenge is particularly difficult to manage. Only 21% of SMBs report proactively managing cross-border compliance, while nearly 25% say they frequently struggle to meet regulatory requirements, per the report. This is almost double the rate reported by larger companies. Additionally, 82% of these businesses say they have failed, or expect to fail, to onboard a global hire due to compliance, tax, or regulatory hurdles. As regulatory scrutiny increases, navigating employment laws across jurisdictions is also becoming more complex and more consequential.

Record-high H-1B costs and growing immigration backlogs have also pushed traditional domestic sponsorship out of reach for many, as over three-quarters of SMBs say H-1B restrictions are directly affecting workforce planning. Despite this pressure, most small businesses aren’t equipped to hire globally. The talent pools once accessed through H-1B sponsorship remain just as relevant, but without the right infrastructure, employers are left scrambling.

“Access to the right talent has become one of the biggest constraints to small business growth,” said TriNet Chief People Officer Catherine Wragg. “As demand for AI-related skills accelerates and traditional hiring pathways become more difficult, SMBs are being forced to look beyond local markets. The opportunity is there, but without the right infrastructure, the risk and complexity can be overwhelming.”

The findings in this report point to a broader shift in how SMBs access talent, with more companies opting to hire internationally rather than relocate workers to the U.S. This is evident in the increased usage of Multiplier’s platform among U.S. based businesses, which has grown 16.4% since April 2024.

To learn more about how today’s SMBs are navigating a complex regulatory landscape to sustain and grow their businesses, download The Global Talent Squeeze report here.

About Multiplier
Multiplier, precision-built for companies to hire, manage, and pay global teams across more than 160 countries. By combining EOR, COR, and Global Payroll, with a vast network of owned entities and human-first support, Multiplier empowers companies of all sizes to expand globally with confidence. Since 2020, the global-first infrastructure has helped over 1,500 companies and now processes over $2 billion in cross-border wages, reshaping the global economy and the future of work.

About TriNet
TriNet is a leading provider of Human Resources solutions for small and medium-size businesses, offering advanced technology-enabled services that include human capital expertise, employee benefits such as health insurance and retirement plans, payroll and payroll tax administration, risk mitigation, and compliance consulting. Our long-term objective is to be the premier provider of HR services for a broad range of SMBs through industry leading benefits, sales distribution excellence, and a world class services delivery model. For more information, visit TriNet.com or follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.
 

TriNet and the TriNet logo are registered trademarks of TriNet. All other trademarks, service marks, registered trademarks, or registered service marks are the property of their respective owners.

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SOURCE Multiplier

SHANGHAI, July 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — A report from Science and Technology Daily:

The 2026 World AI Conference (WAIC) and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance will be held in Shanghai from July 17 to 20. Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend the opening ceremony and deliver a keynote address.

Since its inception in 2018, the conference has evolved into a key multilateral platform for the international community to engage in dialogue on AI and build consensus on global governance.

Themed “AI Partnership for a Brighter Future,” this year’s conference envisions AI empowering all industries and serving production and daily life. It will see collective discussion on technological innovation, the translation of achievements into real-world applications, and fostering an inclusive ecosystem, steering AI toward greater good and injecting new momentum into global AI development.

How can AI be truly harnessed, becoming an international public good that benefits all? Facing this shared challenge, China has consistently anchored its efforts in the common well-being of all, contributing Chinese wisdom and solutions to promote healthy and orderly development of AI in a beneficial, safe, and fair direction.

China upholds a people-centered approach and AI for good. It opposes the use of AI as a tool for seeking hegemony, resource monopolization, domination of rule-making, and the formation of exclusionary blocs. It rejects artificial technological barriers that hinder other countries’ development. The China-proposed Global AI Governance Initiative, with the principles of extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits, has fostered cooperative consensus in global AI development and garnered broad support from the international community.

China adheres to multilateral coordination to solidify the institutional foundation for improving global AI governance. It supports the United Nations in playing the primary role in AI governance, is engaged in deliberating and formulating global ethical norms and technical standards, and safeguards the equal right of all countries to participate in rule-setting.

China has launched the Global AI Governance Action Plan to translate the existing consensus into practical measures, the AI+ International Cooperation Initiative to expand pathways for sustainable development enabled by smart technologies, and proposed a World AI Cooperation Organization for multilateral cooperation and governance. Through all this, China has consistently resolved differences through dialogue. It has aligned development strategies, coordinated governance rules, and promoted mutual recognition of technical standards among countries, expanding the greatest common denominator of global governance consensus.

China embraces openness, sharing, inclusiveness, and benefit for all to bridge the global AI divide. It has facilitated the UN General Assembly’s consensus adoption of a resolution on strengthening international cooperation on AI capacity-building, placing developing countries’ capacity development on the global AI governance agenda. It has proposed and implemented the AI Capacity-Building Action Plan for Good and for All, initiated the Group of Friends for International Cooperation on AI Capacity-Building, and carried out multi-dimensional technical and talent collaboration.

Beijing continues to promote technology open-source, knowledge sharing, and industrial synergy, leveraging the WAIC to facilitate cross-regional flows of quality intelligent resources. These measures translate inclusive visions into tangible outcomes, helping developing countries address gaps in their intelligent transformation and fulfilling the commitment of “leaving no one behind.”

The 2026 WAIC and High-level Meeting on Global AI Governance will present a vital opportunity to consolidate consensus and deepen cooperation. The fruits of smart technology development can be shared more equitably only by abandoning the zero-sum game mindset, embracing an open and win-win cooperative philosophy, and jointly building a fair, reasonable, inclusive, and beneficial global AI governance system.

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SOURCE Science and Technology Daily