Mark Kasdorf

Mark Kasdorf is an American entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Forge, a venture-backed heat pump installation company based in Newton, Massachusetts, that trains its own workforce through a paid apprenticeship program.^[1] Forge has raised approximately $28 million, including a $17 million Series A led by Eclipse Ventures.^[1][10]

Before founding Forge, Kasdorf built and sold two companies. He founded Intrepid Pursuits, a mobile software development firm, in 2010 and grew it to 150 employees and approximately $25 million in annual revenue before its acquisition by Accenture in 2017.^[18][1] He also co-founded Timbre, a live music discovery app that was acquired by Seatwave in 2014.^[9] A graduate of Hamilton College and Boston University School of Law, Kasdorf has been building companies since the age of 23 and has described the Accenture period as the only time in his career he worked for someone else.^[5][8]

Mark Kasdorf grew up in central New York and attended Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, where he graduated in 2006 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and economics.^[5] He has said he chose mathematics because he loved writing theorems and proofs, and later credited the liberal arts curriculum with teaching him how to think rather than providing direct vocational training.^[5] At the time of his graduation, Kasdorf has recalled, he had never heard of a venture capitalist and had only a vague understanding of the word "entrepreneur."^[5]

Kasdorf enrolled at Boston University School of Law immediately after Hamilton, earning his JD in 2009.^[5] He later credited the decision to attend law school in Boston — rather than elsewhere — as the pivotal geographic choice that exposed him to the city's startup ecosystem and set him on an entrepreneurial path.^[5] It was during law school that he started his first company, Burning Hollow Technologies, at the age of 23.^[5]

Burning Hollow Technologies (2007–2010)

Kasdorf founded Burning Hollow Technologies, a software venture, while still a student at Boston University School of Law, around 2007.^[5] He raised a small seed round from outside investors, but the company ran out of money in 2010.^[5] The failure coincided with his graduation from law school, at which point he had significant student debt, a wife, and a four-month-old child. He turned down a law firm job offer to continue pursuing entrepreneurship.^[5]

Intrepid Pursuits (2010–2017)

In early 2010, Kasdorf founded Intrepid Pursuits, a mobile software design and development studio based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.^[8] The company began as a two-person operation and was bootstrapped without outside venture capital.^[1] Intrepid built more than 100 mobile applications for enterprise clients and grew to 150 full-time employees, reaching approximately $25 million in annual revenue.^[8][1] The company was ranked No. 796 on the 2017 Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in America.^[9]

On June 28, 2017, Accenture acquired Intrepid Pursuits to expand its mobile user experience capabilities within Accenture Digital.^[10][18] All 150 employees joined Accenture as part of the deal.^[18] Kasdorf later described the structural similarity between Intrepid and his current company Forge: both were services businesses where utilization was the central metric and people were the primary cost.^[8]

Intrepid Labs (2011–circa 2017)

Around 2011, Kasdorf founded Intrepid Labs, a co-working center for startups located in the historic American Twine Building in Kendall Square, Cambridge.^[5] The space operated in parallel with Intrepid Pursuits and served as an incubator environment where early-stage companies could rent workspace. Timbre, Kasdorf's live music discovery app, was developed out of Intrepid Labs.^[5] The co-working center's operational end date is not publicly documented, though it likely wound down around the time of the Accenture acquisition in 2017.

Timbre (2012–2014)

In May 2012, a developer working with Kasdorf built a prototype live music discovery app at a Boston Globe–sponsored hackathon called the Boston Innovation Challenge.^[5] Kasdorf hired him three weeks later, and the project was spun out of Intrepid Pursuits as a separate company called Timbre in September 2012.^[5] The app used location data to help users discover nearby live concerts. In February 2013, Timbre raised a $360,000 seed round from Atlas Venture, Boston Seed Capital, and Bantam Group.^[5] The app expanded to 36 countries and accumulated approximately 400,000 downloads.^[9][17]

In early 2014, Timbre was acquired by Seatwave, a London-based ticketing marketplace.^[9][13] TechCrunch reported that Seatwave planned to use Timbre's technology to expand into live music discovery and primary ticket sales.^[9] The Timbre team remained at Intrepid Pursuits following the acquisition.^[14]

Accenture (2017–2020)

Following the acquisition of Intrepid Pursuits, Kasdorf joined Accenture Digital, where he remained until approximately August 2020.^[8][8] He has described this period as the only time in his career that he worked for someone else.^[8] He departed Accenture to found Forge.

Forge (2020–present)

Kasdorf founded Forge (legally Naurus, Inc., doing business as Forge Co.) in November 2020, initially operating under the name Intrepid Homes.^[1] The company originally focused on augmented reality technology for the construction trades, but Kasdorf pivoted after recognizing a more fundamental problem: the United States was running out of skilled tradespeople as an older generation retired, and existing employers were poorly suited to attract younger workers.^[8][1] He chose to focus on heat pump installation, which he considered the right balance of specialization and scalability among the building trades.^[8]

Forge operates as a vertically integrated HVAC contractor that recruits, trains, and employs its own workforce. The company runs a paid 12-week apprenticeship program, paying trainees $15 per hour during training and transitioning graduates to full-time positions at $21 per hour with health insurance.^[1] Approximately 70 percent of apprentices complete the program and move into paid Forge positions, and nearly one-third of graduates have been women.^[1] Forge uses proprietary software and AI tools to enable less experienced workers to perform tasks that would traditionally require a master electrician.^[20] The company grew from its first heat pump installation to more than 10 crews operating across Massachusetts within 18 months, entirely through organic growth.^[8]

Forge has raised approximately $28 million in total funding, including a $17 million Series A led by Eclipse Ventures, with participation from Boston Seed Capital, NextView Ventures, Bantam Group, and homebuilder Lennar Corp.^[1][10] The company is headquartered at 66 Rowe Street in Newton, Massachusetts.^[1]

Companyon Ventures (dates unknown)

Kasdorf has been listed as a private equity investor at Companyon Ventures Management LLC, a Boston-based venture capital firm founded in 2016.^[18] The nature and duration of this involvement have not been publicly detailed; it appears to reflect an angel or limited partner relationship rather than a full-time operating role.^[18]

Kasdorf lives in Wayland, Massachusetts, with his wife and three children.^[1] In 2011, he created Hamilton College's first business pitch competition for students and alumni, motivated by his belief that Hamilton graduates did not know entrepreneurship was a viable career path; he received the Hamilton College Key Award that year for the initiative.^[17][5]