Marketplace Startups

Athletes, coaches, and scouts lack a purpose-built sports platform for discovery, verified performance data, NIL monetization, and organizing play.

Policyholders making insurance claims lack a direct way to earn rewards on claim-related purchases and insurers/brokers have limited tools to drive value and recover costs from claim spend.

The deck identifies a significant problem in the sports industry: the lack of a dedicated platform for athletes, especially those who are not able to monetize their NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) rights...

Georgia

Las Vegas, NV

Manual, untracked referral payments creating wasted spend and lack of ROI for foot-traffic businesses.

Hyderabad, Telangana

The problem is the lack of market control, low margins, product duplication, and payment delays for brands and trade professionals in the building materials industry. End customers face inflated...

Static, passive digital content and fragmented, outdated tools (e.g., Adobe) or walled-garden platforms (e.g., Amazon) reduce engagement and limit creator control and monetization.

Oregon

Musicians face high marketplace fees, lack safe trading options, boutique builders struggle to reach U.S. buyers, and shipping is off-platform and inconvenient.

VA

Commerce and security in restricted environments (e.g., military bases) are broken: manual/inconsistent credentialing, low courier success rates, no valid addresses, navigation blind spots, high cart...

Systemic revenue waste caused by fragmented consumer intent leads to lost savings for individuals and poor ad conversion for brands and platforms.

Patients seeking affordable healthcare abroad face a fragmented ecosystem with hidden fees, long research timelines, travel/visa friction, and no trusted end-to-end solution.

Chandigarh

Local shopkeepers are losing footfall to online shopping; most lack an effective digital presence and face costly, time-consuming marketing. Consumers find it difficult to search offline stores.

Houston, Texas

The problem is well-defined, focusing on the fragmented and inefficient process of booking photographers and videographers, which includes issues like inconsistent payments, lack of visibility, and...

Minneapolis, MN

Changing consumer preferences and social equity gap in cannabis; younger generations are shifting away from alcohol toward healthier, community-centered alternatives.

Africa's agricultural trade is fragmented, opaque, and inefficient: fragmented supply chains, high remittance fees (7–12%), payment delays, and sourcing challenges.

Karachi

No accessible wealth infrastructure for retail and diaspora investors to buy fractional Pakistani real estate and high-yield agricultural assets.

London, England

Short-form video drives food discovery, but delivery apps lack video and true discovery; engagement on social doesn’t connect to purchase. Paid ranking favors chains; rising commissions squeeze...

Viewers want to interact directly with their favorite livestreamers, but security, costs, and logistics make face-to-face engagement rare.

Delhi, Delhi

Urban consumers and non-tech users need a simple, accessible way to book rides and arrange deliveries (food and clothing) without relying on complex apps.

College fantasy sports are underserved; mainstream fantasy platforms deprioritize college sports, leaving 50M+ fans without a native product.

Legal ops are broken: slow, opaque, state-dependent paperwork; quality variance; lack of steady lead flow

Bangalore

The deck identifies the problem of modern retail needing transformation to turn physical stores into digital sales engines for faster delivery and better customer experience.

Existing senior care platforms restrict live-in caregiver searches locally, limiting available candidates and driving up costs; in-home/live-in care is unaffordable for many families.

Calgary, Alberta

The problem is not explicitly stated but can be inferred as the inefficiencies and challenges in the recruitment process for both employers and job seekers.

Texas

Patients face confusion, distrust, and fragmented discovery when searching for aesthetic providers; providers face wasted ad spend and outdated CRMs.

Czechia (Czech Republic)

Hiring processes are inefficient: ATS/AI filtering yields irrelevant matches, long time-to-hire, and poor-fit hires; candidates face opaque application experiences.

Tampa, Florida

Customers struggle to find and book reliable, high-quality car washes instantly and to compare providers, pricing, and quality.

Texas

Inefficient, opaque local services booking with vague quotes, limited payment options and complex booking flows.

Lack of a central, tamper-proof digital registry and verification infrastructure for high-value luxury assets (provenance, ownership, authenticity).

Baltimore, Maryland

The deck identifies a significant problem in marketing: the gap between measuring activity and understanding decision-making, which leads to inefficient ad spending.

Traverse City, Michigan

Organizations lack a platform to build, hire, and distribute autonomous AI agents; current agent implementations are bespoke, fragile, and non-portable.

Minnesota

Unchecked entry of unlicensed providers in booking platforms leading to bad client experiences and lack of incentive to be licensed.

Seattle, WA

Web3 builders struggle to launch apps, websites, and tokens quickly; developer scarcity and high fraud/scam risk.

Fragmented, inflexible lighting market forcing compromises on price, design, installation, and functionality.

Dix Hills, NY

Influencer marketing is too expensive with uncertain ROI, too complicated due to lengthy negotiations, and not scalable when managing many influencers.

Pune, Maharashtra

Players lack true ownership and provenance of in-game items; monetization primarily benefits developers; fraud in item trading; payment processing issues for in-game credits.

Columbus, Ohio

Local home service providers miss a large share of customer calls (62% unanswered), leading to lost revenue and jobs going to whoever answers first; pay-per-lead platforms charge for leads that often...

Miami, Florida

Phone calls are frequent daily interactions with static, non-personalized call screens and no monetization; creators lack a way to monetize attention during call-time and brands ignore this surface.

Bridgwater, Somerset

Inefficient temporary workforce placement between agencies and businesses leading to unutilized opportunities, lost contracts and reduced productivity.

Dakar, Senegal

The infrastructure connecting African mango production to European demand is insufficiently organized, leading to fragmented supply, post-harvest losses, and export rejections.

Aldie, VA

No single portal exists where consumers or businesses can request quotes/proposals for all local B2C and B2B services; the market is fragmented across many niche sites.

Parents overpay on baby essentials because brands sell single-use products, forcing multiple separate purchases and added cost/clutter.

Helsinki

The traditional art industry is exclusive, inaccessible to younger collectors and emerging artists, and relies on outdated sales and communication methods.

Limited access for African artisans and designers to global marketplaces and cross-border logistics.

Ibadan, Oyo

Fragmented, informal rental market in Nigerian cities with fake listings, cash payments and fraud.

Nashville, Tennessee

The deck identifies the problem of abundant deal flow but limited decision bandwidth, which slows down financial research and deal velocity.

Singapore

The deck identifies the problem of abundant deal flow but limited decision bandwidth, which slows down financial research and deal velocity.

Decision fatigue for grocery and meal selection; consumers spend significant time and money deciding what to eat.

Minneapolis, MN

1) Negative cannabis stigma and lack of media support for underrepresented cannabis creators and brands; 2) Fast fashion waste and sustainability issues; 3) Limited professional platforms for...

Pet owners lack real-time, continuous health monitoring and data-driven insights for early detection and preventative care; pet care services are fragmented and pet insurance adoption is low.

Athens, AL

St. Louis, Missouri

Large creator-driven treasure hunt community on Instagram lacks dedicated app infrastructure for organizing and monetizing live treasure hunts.

Cameroon

Farmers and traders in Africa operate with limited real-time market visibility leading to panic selling, overstock losses, and poor timing decisions.

Dubai, Dubai

Ownership is increasingly a liability; high interest rates, inflation, and asset maintenance costs make buying/owning difficult. The rental market is fragmented, offline, and untrusted, leaving large...

Charlotte, North Carolina

Hidden costs and unclear pricing in cleaning services lead to high booking abandonment and friction.

Businesses struggle to deliver AI projects end-to-end (scoping, sourcing and vetting experts, ensuring security/compliance, and managing delivery).

Gen Z is the largest generation in US history and financially underserved; traditional finance apps rely on willpower leading to high solo saver failure rates; the real crisis is failing to build...

Austin, TX

Productions bleed budget and time on crowds and set continuity: casting bottlenecks, wardrobe shortages, weather, reshoots, and manual continuity fixes drive significant delays and cost overruns.

Travelers struggle to find trustworthy, experience-based insights and seamless booking for leisure and travel experiences.

The maternal and infant care system faces surging demand but lacks infrastructure. Providers spend 40%+ of their time on non-billable admin work, use multiple disconnected tools, and miss significant...

Austin, TX

Legal and compliance analysis is costly, slow, and error-prone.

Los Angeles, CA

Austin, TX

Local small businesses must self-manage logistics and manual deliveries, losing productivity and lacking efficient local sourcing.

Surveillance footage is rarely reviewed; businesses lack scalable ways to search and monitor existing camera feeds.

Hard to find vetted, high-quality outdoor guides and book real-time guided trips.

College Station, TX

Drivers face exploitative commission structures; riders have no price-setting power.

Singapore

Current AI suffers from context loss and stateless interactions; intellumia aims to solve by building a personal AI twin with persistent graph memory.

San Fransisco, California

New York

Most language learning tools teach vocabulary without cultural context, leading to misunderstandings, poor localization, and lost trust for tourists, diaspora communities, and global organizations.

Land investment is a broken, fragmented system involving many intermediaries (lawyers, appraisers, surveyors, brokers, etc.), costing $10K–$15K and taking 90+ days.

The problem identified is the difficulty in reaching the right people for sales, advice, and market interviews, as they are often out of reach and ignore outreach attempts.

Austin, TX

No trusted, scalable solution for plant care when owners travel

In India, 90% of auto repairs are done by unorganized roadside mechanics, leading to long wait times, opaque pricing, unverified skills, spare parts sourcing challenges, and no live tracking for...

Los Angeles, CA

Local boutique inventory is disconnected from digital demand; customers can't discover local inventory quickly

Tampa Bay, FL

Bookings managed via iMessage/text threads; no capacity visibility or CRM; cash/Venmo invoicing; no marketplace for demand; fleets unmanaged.

Therapy in India is expensive, has long waitlists, and is stigmatized; most people never receive care despite large unmet need.

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Lack of culturally-rooted cannabis brands and limited low-cost customer acquisition for niche communities.

Munich, Bavaria

The deck identifies a lack of a centralized, digital, and secure platform for high-value luxury asset documentation and transactions.

Manufacturers have limited distribution reach (only ~4% of US market) and face long, costly retailer onboarding processes.

Phoenix, Arizona

Execution breaks across independent businesses, systems, teams, and time; despite widespread AI/tool adoption, continuity and coordination are missing.

Atlanta, Georgia

Declining reader engagement with static text

Toronto, Ontario

Traditional software development is slow, expensive, and error-prone; legacy methodologies from the 1970s impede shareholder value.

African supply remains fragmented across producers, collectors, packhouses, exporters, and international buyers, leading to inefficiencies and losses.

Atlanta, GA

Millions of paid-for event seats go unused every year, costing fans (lost ticket value), venues (lost in-venue spending), and artists/teams (lower payouts and poor optics). Existing resale platforms...

Los Angeles, California

Event planning is fragmented across many tools and vendors leading to coordination issues, budget misalignment, and lack of transparency.

Glendale

Bryan, TX

Fragmented discovery and coordination for celebrations and events