New York, NY, Sept. 17, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — 4Thought Technologies, Inc., a pioneering financial technology company developing AI automation systems for financial operations, announced today that it has been awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I grant totaling $256,000 from the U.S. National Science Foundation. The grant, awarded under NSF award number 2212675, will fund the development of the world’s first Turing-complete no-code platform specifically designed for smart contracts and financial operations automation.
The NSF grant funds 4Thought’s breakthrough approach to creating an adaptive AI no-code platform that will enable enterprises without advanced programming capabilities to reap the benefits of analyzing and writing smart contracts while managing associated risks.
“This NSF grant validates our vision of democratizing access to sophisticated blockchain analysis and smart contract creation,” said Richie Sater, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of 4Thought Technologies. “Regulatory oversight increasingly requires the ability to read, analyze, and write smart contracts. Currently, financial institutions face a difficult choice: either hire scarce and expensive blockchain developers to engage with these new markets or risk falling behind. Our platform eliminates that trade-off.”
Founded in May 2021 by a team of seasoned professionals from Bloomberg, JPMorgan, Ernst & Young, and leading technology firms, 4Thought Technologies addresses the critical gap between enterprises needing advanced AI automation for financial operations and the prohibitive costs of specialized development talent. As Principal Investigator for the NSF grant, CEO Richie Sater brings extensive blockchain development experience from Ernst & Young, where he led cryptocurrency and blockchain implementations for major exchanges, investment banks, and asset management firms.
The NSF-funded project will specifically address the development of a novel visual programming language designed to read, write, and analyze smart contracts on public blockchains using simple voice commands. This technical innovation represents a major advancement from existing no-code solutions, addressing a critical gap between the explosive growth of blockchain-enabled financial markets and the limited technical capabilities of most financial institutions to participate effectively.
The NSF SBIR program supports small businesses in developing innovative technologies with significant commercial potential and broader societal impact. Phase I awards fund feasibility studies and proof-of-concept development, with successful projects eligible for larger Phase II implementation grants.
This project aligns with NSF’s mission to advance scientific progress while addressing real-world challenges facing American businesses and financial markets. 4Thought’s solution specifically targets the growing need for enterprises to analyze and interact with smart contracts at scale without requiring specialized programming teams.
Building on the NSF-funded research, 4Thought plans to expand its KRONOS® platform to serve enterprises across industries – from asset managers and banks to consultancies and government agencies – seeking to automate financial operations including trading workflows, tax calculations, audit processes, and compliance alerts. “Financial automation today is too slow, too expensive, and reserved for firms with large development teams. We are changing that. KRONOS® provides the power of a full development team in a simple, visual interface, opening up the future of finance to everyone,” said Sater. The company’s domain-specific visual programming language presents these automations as flowcharts that financial professionals can build without coding, while its AI reasoning remains explainable and traceable.
About 4Thought Technologies, Inc.
4Thought Technologies provides an AI automation platform for financial operations, built on its proprietary KRONOS® infrastructure. The company enables enterprises across industries — from asset managers and banks to consultancies and government agencies — to automate complex financial workflows including trading operations, compliance monitoring, and risk management without requiring coding expertise. Founded by executives from Bloomberg, Citi, EY, and JP Morgan, 4Thought delivers automation capabilities that are faster, cheaper, and easier to implement than traditional development approaches while fully protecting each customer’s proprietary data and strategies.
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4Thought Technologies, Inc.
Richie Sater
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