International Journal of Science, Engineering and TechnologyAuthors: Harsh Gupta, Archana Banait
Abstract: The global crowdfunding and startup investment market is experiencing explosive growth, with valuations pro-jected to surge from USD 17.7 billion in 2024 to over USD 20.46 billion by 2025. This expansion, however, masks a critical and persistent challenge: the “funding gap” faced by early-stage startups. Promising ventures, particularly those outside established tech hubs or led by underrepresented founders, consistently struggle to secure capital due to investor appre-hension, inadequate visibility, and high perceived risk profiles. While platforms like Kickstarter and Ketto have democratized philanthropic and pre-order-based support, their reward or donation-based models offer no financial stake or ownership to backers, limiting both potential returns for investors and capital-raising capacity for entrepreneurs. This paper introduces PitchPortal, a transformative crowd-funding platform engineered to bridge this gap by facilitating genuine equity-based and profit-sharing investments. PitchPortal is architected as a secure, transparent, and intelligent ecosystem that moves beyond mere connection to curated empowerment. It integrates a multi-layered verification framework, combining automated KYC/AML checks with rigorous startup due diligence to build foundational trust. At its core is an AI-powered matching engine that leverages Natural Language Processing (NLP) and collaborative filtering to intelligently align startups with suitable investors based on sector interest, risk appetite, and invest-ment history. Furthermore, to ensure transactional integrity and transparency, PitchPortal incorporates blockchain technology for smart contract-enabled, milestone-based fund disbursement, creating an immutable audit trail. By synergizing these advanced technologies within a user-centric design, PitchPortal aims to de-risk the
